Strategies for engineering metal-organic frameworks as efficient photocatalysts

Environmental pollution and energy deficiency represent major problems for the sustainability of the modern world. Photocatalysis has recently emerged as an effective and environmentally friendly technique to address some of these sustainability issues, although the key to the success of this approach is dependent on the photocatalysts themselves. Based on their attractive physic chemical properties, including their ultrahigh surface areas, homogeneous active sites and tunable functionality, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have become interesting platforms for the development of solar energy conversion devices. Furthermore, MOFs have recently been used in a wide variety of applications, including heterogeneous photocatalysis for pollutant degradation, organic transformations, hydrogen production and CO2 reduction. In this review, we have highlighted recent progress towards the application of MOFs in all of these areas. We have collected numerous reported examples of the use of MOFs in these areas, as well as providing some analysis of the key factors influencing the efficiency of these systems. Moreover, we have provided a detailed discussion of new strategies that have been developed for enhancing the photocatalytic activity of MOFs. Finally, we have provided an outlook for this area in terms of the future challenges and potential prospects for MOFs in photocatalysis.