Perovskite Quantum Dot@MOF Heterostructures: Highly Efficient and Stable Visible-Light Photocatalysts

Abstract

Metal-halide perovskite quantum dots (PQDs) exhibit outstanding optoelectronic properties but suffer from poor chemical stability and rapid charge recombination, severely restricting their photocatalytic applications. Encapsulating PQDs within porous metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) via ship-in-a-bottle, bottle-around-ship, or one-pot synthetic routes effectively overcomes these limitations through spatial confinement, surface passivation, and strong interfacial coupling. The resulting PQD@MOF heterostructures demonstrate remarkable moisture, thermal, and photostability, with charge-separation lifetimes extended to hundreds of nanoseconds or even microseconds. Favorable type-II or Z-scheme band alignments and strong quantum confinement provide thermodynamic driving forces of 0.7-1.4 eV, enabling sacrificialagent-free and noble-metal-free photocatalysis. Benchmark systems achieve record electron consumption rates exceeding 660 µmol g⁻¹ h⁻¹ with ~100% formate selectivity in CO₂ photoreduction, H₂ evolution rates up to 154 µmol h⁻¹ without cocatalysts, and >99% selectivity in aerobic C-H oxidation reactions. This review elucidates synthesis-structure-activity relationships, clarifies confinement-induced charge-transfer mechanisms, critically compares nine representative systems, and outlines a roadmap toward scalable, lead-free PQD@MOF photocatalysts for practical solar fuel production and fine-chemical synthesis.