Thermal Field–Enhanced Electro‐, Photo‐, and Photoelectrocatalytic Processes: Fundamentals, Material Design, and Applications

As a very attractive approach to energy conversion and storage, electrocatalytic, photocatalytic, and photoelectrocatalytic strategies have gained increasing attention in the past decades. Numerous modification methods have been used to boost the performances of electrocatalytic, photocatalytic, and photoelectrocatalytic reactions, including morphology optimization, element doping, and heterostructure construction. In addition to these traditional technologies, the introduction of thermal field emerges as a unique and robust technology for enabling highly efficient electrocatalytic, photocatalytic, and photoelectrocatalytic processes. This review focuses on the recent developments in the application of thermal field to enhance the electrocatalytic, photocatalytic, and photoelectrocatalytic energy conversion and storage. First, the mechanisms of thermal field–assisted enhancement in charge transfer, reaction kinetics, and mass transport are presented. Then, the heating methods (i.e., traditional heating, photothermal heating, and magnetic heating) used to increase the temperature of electrocatalytic, photocatalytic, and photoelectrocatalytic materials are summarized. Highlights are put on the photothermal conversion materials for thermal field–enhanced catalytic reactions. The applications of thermal field–enhanced catalytic processes are discussed, including water splitting, value‐added chemical production, and pollutant degradation. Finally, a proper discussion of the remaining challenges and further outlook for coupling thermal field with catalytic energy conversion and storage processes is provided.