Advances in polymer-based composites for solar energy conversion to chemical fuels

Abstract Fossil fuels, as contemporary energy sources, have been largely employed to meet the world’s total energy demands for centuries. The upsurge in global population and economic developments has caused extreme stress on these fuels, which has further aggravated the environmental concerns. The echoes for clean and sustainable energy sources are being supported globally, and this has further supported extensive technological development in harnessing natural sources (solar energy, tidal energy, wind energy, geothermal, etc.) of energy. Among them, solar energy is an abundant natural source that can be stored as chemical or electrical energy. The conversion of solar energy into hydrogen fuel through photocatalytic or photoelectro-chemical water splitting and finally to chemical fuel through CO2 reduction is a promising approach. Hydrogen, a clean and energy efficient fuel, has found myriad applications ranging from low-powered devices to the aviation sectors as a chemical fuel. Polymers are progressively finding a place in this domain, which has opened great avenues in clean-energy fuel technologies. This chapter presents the advances and research progress made in polymeric science on the development of high-performance photocatalytic/photoelectrochemical energy systems that can efficiently and economically convert solar energy to hydrogen fuel.