There's Still Plenty to Do in Photocatalysis.

Authors

Julian G West

Published in

Chimia. Volume 80. Issue 7-8. Pages 458-463. Aug 19, 2026. Epub Aug 19, 2026.

Abstract

Photocatalysis has undeniable promise for enabling chemical synthesis in a post-fossil resource future; however, this promise has yet to be realized at scale despite over 100 years of interest. Here I propose that this relatively slow progress is rooted in the high chemical complexity of photocatalytic reactions. While the complexity of light absorption and excited state chemistry is a key contributor, our research on Fe/S photocatalysis implicates the efficiency of the many thermal, dark elementary steps being the primary challenge for making a functional reaction. These experiences suggest a paradoxical opportunity in photocatalysis research: one of the richest, most enabling, and most underexplored areas of research is the study of non-photocatalytic steps.

PMID:
42633624
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 24 Aug 2026.

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