Solar hydrogen production from catalytic water splitting is one of the many options available to help generate clean power and alleviate the threatening environmental concerns stemming from the use of fossil fuels. During the past decade, carbon dots (CDs) have shown great potential in their application for solar-driven hydrogen production owing to their exceptional photophysical and electrical properties derived from their sp²/sp³ hybridized core structure and rich surface functionality. In this review, we correlate the structural features of CDs with their optical and electronic properties and evaluate key properties for efficient solar energy-conversion applications with an emphasis on photocatalysis and photoelectrocatalysis, to shed some light on designing high performance CD-based photosystems.

催化水分解产生的太阳能氢是众多可用选项之一，可帮助产生清洁能源并减轻因使用化石燃料而引起的威胁性环境问题。在过去的十年中，由于碳点（sp）从sp ² / sp ³衍生而来的出色的光物理和电特性，它们在太阳能驱动的制氢中显示出了巨大的潜力。混合核心结构和丰富的表面功能。在这篇综述中，我们将CD的结构特征与其光学和电子特性相关联，并评估有效的太阳能转换应用的关键特性，重点是光催化和光电催化，从而为设计基于CD的高性能光系统提供了一些启示。