Emergence of perovskites oxides as advanced Photocatalysts for energy and environmental remediation applications

Abstract

The quality of human life on planet Earth mainly depends on the quality of air, water, food, and energy sources such as transportation and technology. The most important global challenges are as limited availability of conventional energy sources such as fossil fuel and its pollution, the increase in carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels in the environment, pollution of water and earth due to industrial waste dyes, endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDC), nitrogen (N₂) and agrochemicals. These above challenges could be overcome by developing artificial energy sources such as the utilization of solar energy efficiently, the production of hydrogen energy as an alternative energy source, developing the technology for converting CO₂ and N₂ into useful chemicals [methane (CH₄) and ammonia (NH₃)] or less toxic compounds, dyes, and EDC needs environmentally friendly degradation technology. Towards the above applications, various strategies and materials have been developed, however, sustainability is a matter of concern. Perovskite oxides are promising materials to fight against global challenges with environmental sustainability due to various interesting physical, chemical, stability, and structural tunability. With the horizon, global need, and challenges in mind, this report investigates the latest developments and advances in perovskite oxides, substitution and doping strategies, advanced synthesis techniques, and their promising applications in the area of photocatalysis such as photodegradation of pollutants, industrial waste dyes, EDC, hydrogen (H₂) evolution by photocatalytic water splitting, CO₂ reduction into hydrocarbons, and N₂ fixation to generate ammonia environmentally acceptable approach. The outstanding performance of perovskite oxide is 100 % BPA removal in 2 min, >79 % photodegradation of dyes, 0.44 mmol/gh H₂ evolution in 180 min, and considerable CH₄ evolution. This review also advocates for substantial future research into the development of artificial intelligence-based perovskites for precise and controlled photocatalysis process development.