Researchers and Themes
| Hideki Abe | Ryotaro Arita | Kazunori Ueno | Naoto Umezawa |
| Kohei Endo * | Gen-ichi Konishi | Kazunori Sato | Yoshiaki Nakamura |
| Taro Hitosugi | Masaki Mizuguchi | Makoto Moriya | Ikuya Yamada |
* High-impact type
Development of highly active photocatalysts from ubiquitous elements
Naoto Umezawa
National Institute for Materials Science
Photocatalytic Materials Center, Senior Researcher
Outline of Research Theme
The purpose of the present research is to promote a green innovation by the development of photocatalysts consisting only of ubiquitous elements, but which exhibit far higher activity in the presence of solar radiation than that of TiO2. Following strategies based on band structure engineering, reduction of defect concentration, formation of nanocrystals, and prediction of active surface orientation, we plan to theoretically design superior photocatalytic materials using abundant elements, and experimentally measure their performance to validate the theoretical predictions. It is hoped that this strategic approach to materials development will lead to the discovery of innovative, high-performance photocatalysts.