Shedding Light on Common Misinterpretations in Photocatalyst Characterization

Roughly half a century of intense research in photocatalysis has undoubtedly allowed scientific progress, for example, in the design and understanding of new materials, the optimization of reaction conditions, and the suggestion of reaction pathways. However, this highly interdisciplinary and complex research field is also suffering from the publication of many articles presenting misinterpretations and flawed conclusions. Occasionally, general physical or thermodynamic principles are not, or incompletely, taken into account, or experimental techniques are incorrectly applied. This presents a severe challenge, not only for researchers attempting to reproduce the work and to use it as a foundation for their work, but also for data scientists aiming to use published data for machine-driven scientific progress. In the current article, common misconceptions are collected and provided with detailed explanations on how to avoid them. These span all scientific steps from material preparation over material characterization, and eventually photocatalytic testing. Thus, clear guidelines are provided for researchers new to the field, and it is hoped that the publication of results and conclusions in photocatalysis will improve overall.