Photoelectrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction: Fundamental, advances and challenges

Abstract

With the rising global population, increasing energy demand and rapid climate change, great concerns have been raised for environment and energy security in future. Solar-driven CO 2 reduction provides a promising way to deal with energy crisis and global warming, which has been widely concerned. Photoelectrocatalysis technology can effectively utilize solar energy and avoid to use high-temperature and high-voltage reduction environment by integrating the vantages of both photocatalysis and electrocatalysis, which exhibits a broad application prospect of CO 2 reduction with a high efficiency and excellent selectivity. In this review, basic principles of CO 2 reduction by photocatalysis, electrocatalysis and photoeletrocatalysis are briefly reviewed, also comparing the technical characteristics of the above technologies. Different photoelectrocatalytic systems for CO 2 reduction are described and compared. The several key influencing factors of photoelectrocatalytic performance of CO 2 reduction are discussed, including interaction between reaction molecules and catalysts, reaction conditions and influence of photoelectrode. Then, the advances on reaction mechanisms and strategies of performance enhancement by optimizing photoexcitation, charge separation efficiency and surface reaction were reviewed. Besides, the challenges and prospects of photoelectrocatalytic CO 2 reduction will be also discussed.