The rapidly increasing global energy consumption utilizing conventional polluting fuels has been putting enormous stress on the health of our environment and thereby the long term sustainability of the animal and plant life on our planet. The world clearly needs to move rapidly to the alternative sources of environment-friendly, carbon-neutral, clean and renewable energy. To this end, amongst the promising strategies being pursued, one of the best approaches is to produce hydrogen energy from water by using sunlight, with unlimited available resource of both water and sunlight. Concurrently, there is also an emergent need to control CO₂ emissions by reducing them to valuable fuels or chemicals using sunlight. For both these goals, it is essential to have efficient, robust and affordable photocatalysts. The early emphasis on semiconductor photocatalysts along with expensive noble-metals co-catalysts has prevented the speedy advance of this energy technology. Extensive efforts are now being expended on designing high-performance photocatalysts based on emergent functional materials endowed with a fascinating set of physical and chemical properties. Towards this end, two-dimensional (2D) materials and their heterostructures have been attracting significant attention lately as potentially viable candidates owing to their unique, and highly tunable optical and electronics functionalities, which are technically adequate for the efficient hydrogen production and conversion of CO₂ to fuels. In this topical review, we address the recent progress made in the domain. We believe that by virtue of the uniquely distinct characteristics of their electronic density of states, surface states, high surface area, and diverse possibilities of innovative surface chemical engineering, the 2D materials hold a great promise for facilitating economically viable renewable/clean energy harvesting solution(s) on commercial-scale, thereby accomplishing the urgent task of ensuring the future energy security for the world.

使用传统污染燃料的全球能源消耗迅速增加，给我们环境的健康带来了巨大压力，从而给我们星球上动植物生命的长期可持续性带来了巨大压力。世界显然需要迅速转向环保、碳中和、清洁和可再生能源的替代来源。为此，在所追求的有希望的策略中，最好的方法之一是利用阳光从水产生氢能，水和阳光的可用资源是无限的。同时，也迫切需要控制 CO ₂通过使用阳光将它们减少为有价值的燃料或化学品来减少排放。对于这两个目标，拥有高效、耐用且价格合理的光催化剂至关重要。早期对半导体光催化剂以及昂贵的贵金属助催化剂的重视阻碍了这种能源技术的快速发展。现在，人们正致力于设计基于新兴功能材料的高性能光催化剂，这些材料具有一系列令人着迷的物理和化学性质。为此，二维 (2D) 材料及其异质结构由于其独特且高度可调的光学和电子功能，在技术上足以有效地生产氢气和转化 CO₂给燃料。在这篇专题评论中，我们讨论了该领域最近取得的进展。我们相信，凭借其独特的电子态密度、表面态、高表面积和创新表面化学工程的多种可能性，二维材料有望促进经济上可行的可再生/清洁能源收集解决方案(s) 商业规模，从而完成确保世界未来能源安全的紧迫任务。