Strategies and reaction systems for solar-driven CO2 reduction by water

Abstract

Solar driven CO2 conversion into high-value-added chemicals and energy-rich fuels is one of the promising strategies to tackle global warming and to address the energy-supply crisis. Even though enormous effort has been devoted to exploring all sorts of homogeneous and heterogeneous photocatalysts, the current efficiency and more importantly selectivity to valuable chemicals are still rather moderate, thus it is desired to develop high-efficiency photocatalytic system toward CO2 reduction with excellent selectivity. In this review, fundamental aspects of photocatalytic CO2 reduction by pure water, the reaction systems and the reliable method for detection of the products are firstly described. Thereafter the recent advances of the main strategy for improving the photocatalytic CO2 reduction from the perspective of promoting the CO2 adsorption and activation, accelerating the kinetics of water oxidation, and modulating charge separation are overviewed. The prospects and challenges on precise designing heterogeneous catalysts for CO2 photoreduction are proposed at the end, indicating the significance for the further development of photocatalytic systems with high CO2 conversion efficiency and product selectivity.