Recent progress on photocatalytic reduction of CO2 to C2+ products

Abstract

Photocatalytic CO2 conversion to hydrocarbon products is an appealing strategy for solving the escalating problem of energy scarcity and global warming. Although there has been much research to date, most of it has been aimed at increasing yields rather than product selectivity. However, regulating product selectivity is vital to achieve controlled hydrocarbon products. Particularly, the C2+ products have a higher added value than C1 products (e.g., methane, carbon monoxide, methanol), so it makes more economic sense to increase the selectivity of C2+ products. This review provides a concise overview of the latest developments in the photocatalytic conversion of CO2 into multi-carbon compounds. The available literature has been organized according to the primary factors that determine the selectivity of C2+ products, including vacancy engineering, co-catalyst loading, doping engineering, and surface plasmon resonance effect. Plausible conjectures concerning methods to enhance the selectivity of C2+ products have been presented, with a focus on synthesizing the existing empirical knowledge derived from theoretical and experimental data.