Best Practices for Assessing Performance of Photocatalytic Water Splitting Systems

Photocatalytic water splitting has become a very popular research subject in recent years. Consequently, it is important to report appropriately standardized experimental data, so that each researcher can properly understand the results generated by others. However, experimental methods and measures of photocatalytic performance are not yet sufficiently systematic. In the present manuscript, experimental procedures and standardization of photocatalytic performance are described in relation to the basic theory of photocatalytic water splitting. Photocatalytic water splitting has become a popular subject, and there have been increasing reports on this subject. One challenge in such a situation is reporting appropriately standardized experimental data, so that each researcher can properly understand the others’ results. This paper provides basic information concerning the experimental setup, data acquisition and processing methods, and standardized denotation of photocatalytic performance.