The global concerns in the development of human civilization and the scientific and technological issues of energy utilization and environment protection are currently facing challenges. Functional materials and devices based on pure, mixed, and doped transition metal oxides, heterojunction and hybrid materials involving 2D materials are of great technological importance in energy and environmental applications because of their capability to generate charge carriers when stimulated with a required amount of energy. The promising arrangement of electronic structure, light absorption properties, and charge transport characteristics of most nanomaterials render them potential candidates particularly for effective environmental and energy applications. Moreover, these materials can be synthesized with low cost, high yield, through easily controlled solution-based techniques.

In this talk, I will outline our recent research effort on new synthetic methods and concepts for utilizing photocatalytic and gas sensing materials based on pure, mixed, and doped transition metal oxides, heterojunction and hybrid materials involving 2D materials.