Molecularly engineered photocatalyst sheet for scalable solar formate production from carbon dioxide and water

Abstract

Harvesting solar energy to convert CO2 into chemical fuels is a promising technology to curtail the growing atmospheric CO2 levels and alleviate the global dependence on fossil fuels; however, the assembly of efficient and robust systems for the selective photoconversion of CO2 without sacrificial reagents and external bias remains a challenge. Here we present a photocatalyst sheet that converts CO2 and H2O into formate and O2 as a potentially scalable technology for CO2 utilization. This technology integrates lanthanum- and rhodium-doped SrTiO3 (SrTiO3:La,Rh) and molybdenum-doped BiVO4 (BiVO4:Mo) light absorbers modified by phosphonated Co(ii) bis(terpyridine) and RuO2 catalysts onto a gold layer. The monolithic device provides a solar-to-formate conversion efficiency of 0.08 ± 0.01% with a selectivity for formate of 97 ± 3%. As the device operates wirelessly and uses water as an electron donor, it offers a versatile strategy toward scalable and sustainable CO2 reduction using molecular-based hybrid photocatalysts.