Metal–organic framework‐based heterojunction photocatalysts for organic pollutant degradation: design, construction, and performances

Abstract Heterogeneous photocatalysis has been considered one of the most attractive alternative routes to transforming naturally abundant, clean, and sustainable solar energy into chemical energy. Nowadays, the most popular heterogeneous photocatalyst, titanium dioxide, has already found applications for water splitting to produce hydrogen and oxygen, for the degradation of organic pollutants, for air purification, and for the creation of self‐cleaning coatings. However, TiO 2 has a significant limitation: a large band gap (3.0–3.4 eV) that makes it impossible to use anything other than ultraviolet illumination to initiate photocatalytic processes. With a focus on efficient solar‐energy utilization, the development of new photocatalysts that are sensitive to visible light is an important direction in the theory and practice of heterogeneous photocatalysis. In this regard, the use of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) is an attractive route; they have emerged as an interesting class of materials for applications in photoreactions due to their flexible tunability in composition, structure, and functional properties, along with their facilitated adsorption towards chemicals and their efficient light absorption. Moreover, they can be composed with other semiconductors to produce heterojunctions (e.g., type‐II, Z‐scheme, and S‐scheme), whose effectiveness in photogenerated charge separation has already been proven by many examples. The present critical review reports progress over the last 5 years in the preparation and activity of metal–organic framework‐based heterojunction photocatalysts for the degradation of organic pollutants. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry (SCI).