Scale up issues of solar-driven photoreactors based on nanostructured semiconducting materials for industrial application

Artificial photosynthesis, photocatalytic H2 production and photocatalytic water treatment are intriguing processes that raise growing interest and demonstrated a good success at lab scale. Many advancements have been achieved both from the point of view of materials synthesis and in the fundamental understanding of the mechanisms. However, the application to an industrial scale is still far for many of these processes due to a wide technology gap. Starting from a brief introduction to the principles of the reactions of interest and the main features of suitable photocatalyst candidates, the attention will be focused on the scale up issues to be solved in order to bring hopefully to the commercial scale these promising technologies.