Organic polymer facilitated CO2 photoreduction: a minireview

Abstract

Continuously increasing fossil fuel consumption with large amounts of CO₂ emission has caused huge environmental problems. Photocatalytic reduction of CO₂ to value-added fuels and chemicals with light as a clean and renewable driving force is a highly promising route to facing energy and environmental issues. Among all of the proposed photocatalysts, organic polymers as metal-free photocatalysts have been intensively developed for CO₂ photoreduction, ascribed to their outstanding CO₂ adsorption capacity, photochemical performance, and tunable structure. Recent advances in CO₂ photoreduction using functionalized carbon nitride materials, covalent organic frameworks, and conjugated organic polymers as catalysts are discussed in this review. Particular emphasis is put on elucidating the relationship between the organic polymer structure and photocatalytic ability. The corresponding reaction mechanism and reaction pathway are deeply studied as well. Moreover, the opportunities and challenges of the development of polymer-catalyzed CO₂ photoreduction are proposed preliminarily.