“Light battery” role of long afterglow phosphor for round-the-clock environmental photocatalysis

Owing to its convenient, sustainable and green process, photocatalysis has become a feasible technique for solving environmental pollution issues. So far, significant achievements have been realized in photocatalytic pollutant elimination. Nevertheless, photocatalytic processes require a continuous external light illumination to drive photoredox reactions, seriously prohibiting their applications in darkness. In this context, exploring a photocatalyst with reliable photocatalytic activity in dark condition is therefore highly meaningful and an ultimate target of photocatalysis technique. Recently, long afterglow phosphor has aroused great attention due to its “light battery” role for driving catalytic reactions in dark conditions. To be specific, long-afterglow phosphor or long-afterglow phosphor/semiconductor composite can be used as a photocatalyst to simultaneously promote the photoredox processes and store extra photoexcited charges in the trapping states upon light irradiation. When the light illumination terminates, a gradual release of the charges from trapping states occurs in long-afterglow phosphor, which can continuously spur photoredox reactions under the dark environment and even maintains the photocatalysis around the clock. In this work, we comprehensively reviewed the recent advances of long afterglow phosphor based round-the-clock photocatalysts in environmental pollutant elimination. Meanwhile, the inherent mechanism of long afterglow photocatalysis was discussed in depth. More importantly, the relationship between the improved long afterglow photocatalytic capability and the engineering of long afterglow system is correlated systematically. Finally, the ongoing challenges and future prospects for the mass production and commercial utilization of round-the-clock photocatalysts are analyzed and outlooked.