Recent advances in metal–organic framework-based photocatalysts for hydrogen production

Clean and sustainable hydrogen fuel production through photocatalytic water splitting is an ideal strategy to achieve a higher grade of sustainability. Metal–organic framework (MOF) based photocatalysts have recently attracted significant attention as a new type of photocatalysts owing to their excellent light harvesting capability and remarkable surface area. This review precisely addresses the current state-of-the-art in the use of pristine MOFs, MOF-supported photocatalysts, and MOF derived nanostructures as photocatalysts to produce clean and sustainable hydrogen fuel. Throughout the review, we emphasize the unique characteristics of MOFs for efficient photocatalytic hydrogen evolution such as ultrahigh porosity/high surface area for accessible active sites to augment the photo-generated electron transfer and to reduce the recombination rate. Finally, the challenges and our personal future perspective directions to generate high photocatalytic hydrogen using MOFs are addressed. We strongly believe that this review can help to stimulate the photocatalysis research with MOFs to a new level by the design and development of highly efficient MOF-based photocatalysts.