Two-dimensional metal oxide nanosheets as building blocks for artificial photosynthetic assemblies

Two-dimensional metal oxide nanosheets are versatile materials for constructing artificial photosynthetic systems that can carry out photocatalytic processes such as water splitting and CO₂ fixation. Nanosheets are anisotropic single-crystals that have thicknesses of 12 nm and lateral dimensions ranging from several hundreds of nanometers to a few micrometers. This structural feature is advantageous for use as heterogeneous photocatalysts, because the diffusion length of photogenerated electron/hole pairs to the surface can be shortened, with less probability of electron/hole recombination. In this Account, recent progress on the development of metal oxide nanosheets and related materials for applications in photocatalytic water splitting and CO₂ fixation made by the authors’ groups is described.