2025 Volume 93 Issue 9 Pages 094001
Photoelectrochemical strategies offer promising pathways for both solar-to-electricity and solar-to-chemical conversion. Advances in functional materials and devices, including solar cells, photocatalysts, plasmonic materials, quantum dots, and electrocatalysts, have significantly broadened the scope of the field. The 72nd Special Feature of Electrochemistry, “Research Frontiers of Photoelectrochemical Energy Conversion and Photocatalysis,” covers a wide range of state-of-the-art topics of photoelectrochemistry, highlighting recent progress and emerging trends in electrochemical solar energy conversion.
To mitigate climate change and reduce dependence on fossil fuels, considerable efforts have been devoted to developing systems that efficiently convert solar energy, the most abundant renewable resource, into electrical or chemical energy in order to realize a sustainable society. Of the various approaches, photoelectrochemical strategies are particularly promising for achieving highly efficient conversion of solar energy into electricity or useful chemicals. Equally important is the development of efficient systems for converting electricity into other forms of energy, such as chemical or light energy, to maximize the utilization of solar-derived electricity. To this end, intensive research has focused on functional materials and devices, including solar cells, photocatalysts, plasmonic materials, quantum dots, and electrocatalysts. In response to these exciting developments, the 72nd Special Feature of Electrochemistry, titled “Research Frontiers of Photoelectrochemical Energy Conversion and Photocatalysis”, has been organized by the Photoelectrochemistry Research Group of the Electrochemical Society of Japan. This issue covers a wide range of state-of-the-art topics of photoelectrochemistry, including a headline article on recent advance in perovskite solar cells by Professor Tsutomu Miyasaka,1 and 14 original papers, among them an invited contribution by the group of Professor Yukina Takahashi (Kyushu University).2
The authors of this editorial article have served as guest editors for this special feature. We are grateful to all authors and reviewers for their invaluable contribution. We hope this special issue will stimulate further discussion, foster new collaborations, and accelerate the development of photoelectrochemical technologies and related materials.
We thank the members of the Photoelectrochemistry Research Group of the Electrochemical Society of Japan and the editorial board members of Electrochemistry for their valuable advice in planning this special feature. The article processing charge for this editorial was supported by the Electrochemical Society of Japan.
Akinori Konno: Writing – review & editing (Equal)
Tetsu Tatsuma: Writing – review & editing (Equal)
Kei Murakoshi: Writing – review & editing (Equal)
Tsukasa Torimoto: Writing – original draft (Lead)
The authors declare no conflict of interest in the manuscript.
A. Konno, T. Tatsuma, K. Murakoshi, and T. Torimoto: ECSJ Fellows
Akinori Konno (Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Shizuoka University)
Akinori Konno received Ph.D. from Tohoku University in 1988. He worked as an Assistant Professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Graduate School of Science and Engineering) from 1988 to 1996. He moved to Shizuoka University (Faculty of Engineering) in 1996 as an Associate Professor (1996–2009) and was promoted to Professor in 2009. His research interests are organic electrochemistry and photoelectrochemistry of organic-inorganic hybrid solar cells such as dye-sensitized solar cells and perovskite solar cells.
Tetsu Tatsuma (Professor, Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo)
Tetsu Tatsuma received his PhD degree from The Univ. of Tokyo in 1993. He was appointed Lecturer at The Univ. of Tokyo in 1998. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2000, and to Professor in 2008. He received the Award for Creative Work from the Chemical Society of Japan in 2011, the Award for Scientific Achievement from the Electrochemical Society of Japan in 2012, and the Japanese Photochemistry Association Award in 2014. His research interests include photoelectrochemistry and nanoscience.
Kei Murakoshi (Professor, Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University)
Kei Murakoshi received his Ph.D. from Hokkaido University in 1992. After postdoctoral research at CNRS in Meudon, France, he joined Osaka University as an Assistant Professor in 1993, and promoted to Associate Professor in 1998. Since 2003, he has held his current position at Hokkaido University. He is the recipient of awards from the Japanese Photochemistry Association in 2008, the Chemical Society of Japan in 2009, the Electrochemical Society of Japan in 2014, and the Spectroscopical Society of Japan in 2019. His research interests include surface physical chemistry, focusing on molecular control at electrified interfaces for advanced energy conversion and intelligent devices.
Tsukasa Torimoto (Professor, Institutes of Innovation for Future Society, Nagoya University)
Tsukasa Torimoto received his Ph.D. from Osaka University in 1994 and began his academic career there in the same year as a research associate. From 2000 to 2005, he served as an Associate Professor at Hokkaido University. Since 2005, he has been a Professor at the Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University. In 2024, he also assumed a concurrent professorship at the Research Institute of Quantum and Chemical Innovation, Institutes of Innovation for Future Society, Nagoya University. He received the Japanese Photochemistry Association Award in 2016 and the Scientific Achievement Award from the Electrochemical Society of Japan in 2017. His main research interests include the development of multinary quantum dots and their applications in photoelectrochemical devices.
