Sunlight and water are among the most plentiful and sustainable resources of energy. Natural photosystem II in the plants uses these resources in ecofriendly manner for the production of atmospheric oxygen and energy. Inspired by this natural process, the development of artificial catalytic system to facilitate the solar-induced water splitting for the continuous production of hydrogen is the holy grail of the chemist and energy experts to meet the future energy demand at minimal environmental cost. Despite considerable research efforts dedicated to this area in the last decade, the development of highly efficient, stable and economic photocatalysts remain a challenging task for the large scale H 2 production from water. Polyoxometalates (POMs)-based materials are emerging photo/photoelectrocatalysts in this quest owing to their multi-electron redox potential and fast reversible charge transfer properties, which are the essential requirements of photo-assisted water splitting catalysis. They are generally soluble in aqueous medium and thus their inherent catalytic/co-catalytic properties can be better exploited by incorporating/immobilizing them over suitable support materials. Therefore, exploration of discrete POM units over the support materials possessing high surface area, functionalizable architecture, flexible pore size and good light harvesting ability is an attractive area of research that has resulted in the generation of a strong library of heterocatalysts. The underlying support not only offers stability and recyclability attributes to the POM units but also provides decent dispersion, easy/maximum accessibility to the active sites, enhanced absorption capability, and synergistically enhances the activity by transfer of electrons and efficient charge/carriers separation by creating POM-support junctions. This mini-review emphasizes on the strategies for the incorporation of POMs on various porous supports like metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), covalent-organic frameworks (COFs), oxide-based semiconductors, carbonaceous materials, etc., and their applications as effective photo/photoelectrocatalysts for water splitting. In addition, the mechanistic study, comparative analysis and the future potential of these novel nanoscale materials is also highlighted. We believe that this review article will provide a new direction and scientific interest at the boundary of materials engineering, and solar-driven chemistry for the sustainable energy conversion/storage processes.

中文翻译：

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负载型多金属氧酸盐作为新兴的纳米杂化材料，用于光化学和光电化学水分解

阳光和水是最丰富和可持续的能源之一。植物中的自然光系统II以生态友好的方式使用这些资源来生产大气中的氧气和能量。受这种自然过程的启发，开发人工催化系统以促进太阳能诱导的水分解以连续生产氢气是化学家和能源专家以最低的环境成本满足未来能源需求的圣杯。尽管在过去十年中对该领域进行了大量的研究工作，但是对于从水中大规模生产H 2而言，开发高效，稳定和经济的光催化剂仍然是一项艰巨的任务。基于多金属氧酸盐（POM）的材料由于其多电子氧化还原电势和快速可逆的电荷转移特性而成为光催化/光电化学催化剂，这是光辅助水分解催化的基本要求。它们通常可溶于水介质，因此，通过将它们掺入/固定在合适的载体材料上，可以更好地利用其固有的催化/共催化性能。因此，在具有高表面积，可官能化结构，柔性孔径和良好的光收集能力的载体材料上探索离散的POM单元是一个吸引人的研究领域，已产生了强大的杂催化剂库。潜在的支持物不仅为POM单元提供了稳定性和可回收性，而且还提供了良好的分散性，易于/最大程度地接近活性位点，增强了吸收能力，并通过电子转移和通过有效的电荷/载流子分离而协同增强了活性POM-支撑结。这篇小型综述重点介绍了将POM结合到各种多孔载体上的策略，例如金属有机骨架（MOF），共价有机骨架（COF），氧化物半导体，碳质材料等，以及它们的有效应用用于水分解的光/光催化剂。此外，还强调了这些新型纳米级材料的机理研究，比较分析和未来潜力。