Prof. Sun’s research interests cover artificial photosynthesis, catalysts based on transition metal complexes and oxides/hydroxides/sulfides for water oxidation, hydrogen generation and nitrogen fixation, functional devices for total water splitting, dye sensitized, quantum dot/rod sensitized solar cells, perovskite solar cells. He has published more than 600 peer reviewed scientific papers in international journals and filed more than 10 patents in the fields of solar cells and solar fuels, and his work has been cited heavily during the past years with total number of citations over 39 000, and a h-index 95 (web of science). He has served in many evaluation and other committees, and as reviewers for numerous research councils (USA, EU, Asian countries). He has given more than 100 invited lectures during the past years in international conferences and numerous seminars in universities all over the world.

He is peer reviewer of scientific journals; mainly from Science, Nature Chem, Wiley-VCH (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Adv. Mater, Adv. Energy Mater., Chem. Eur. J. etc), Royal Society of Chemistry (Energy Environ. Sci., Chem. Commun., Nano Energy, etc) and American Chemical Society (J. Am. Chem. Soc., ACS Catalysis, Inorg. Chem., J. Phys. Chem., Langmuir, etc); ca 60 manuscripts per year.