Abstract: Hydrogen production directly from water splitting by solar energy on photocatalysts is one of the important ways to solve the world energy crisis.Some new types (tantalates，niobates，titanates，multisulfides) of photocatalysts are introduced in this paper.The ways of improving photocatalytic activities are discussed,including nanosized photocatalysts ,ion-doping，composite semiconductors，dye sensitization ,noble metal deposition,electron trapers, surface chelation and derivatives and external field coupling. And the future study is previewed.