Cocatalysts for Selective Photoreduction of CO2 into Solar Fuels

Abstract

Photoreduction of CO₂ into sustainable and green solar fuels is generally believed to be an appealing solution to simultaneously overcome both environmental problems and energy crisis. The low selectivity of challenging multi-electron CO₂ photoreduction reactions makes it one of the holy grails in heterogeneous photocatalysis. This Review highlights the important roles of cocatalysts in selective photocatalytic CO₂ reduction into solar fuels using semiconductor catalysts. A special emphasis in this review is placed on the key role, design considerations and modification strategies of cocatalysts for CO₂ photoreduction. Various cocatalysts, such as the biomimetic, metal-based, metal-free, and multifunctional ones, and their selectivity for CO₂ photoreduction are summarized and discussed, along with the recent advances in this area. This Review provides useful information for the design of highly selective cocatalysts for photo(electro)reduction and electroreduction of CO₂ and complements the existing reviews on various semiconductor photocatalysts.