Professor Michel Dupuis from the University at Buffalo USA was invited to visit Engineering Research Center for Nanomaterials of Henan university from January 16^th to 18^th of 2019. He presented a lecture entitled “Computational studies of semiconductor-based photocatalytic conversions”.

Dupuis’s researches are mainly focused on the computational studies of photocatalysis. He briefly introduced the mechanism and process of photocatalytic water splitting on semiconductor-based photocatalyst. The water splitting process can divide into three parts, namely light absorption, carrier transport and separation, surface reaction. His lecture focused on the mechanism, method and application of theoretical calculation around the charge separation and surface reaction. Taking BiVO₄ (BVO) as an example, he investigated the electron and hole polaron transport in the bulk BVO. Further, he introduced the dynamics of large amount electrons and hole in BVO by Kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) method which developed in his group. He also talked about the how to use theoretical methods to explain and predict the surface reaction in photocatalysis. After the talk, researcher and students discussed with Dupuis