Artificial photosynthesis system for the reduction of carbon dioxide to value-added fuels

Abstract

The ever increasing demand for energy supplied by fossil fuels, which leads to a rise in greenhouse gases (CO2) and global warming. The utilization of CO2 as a substitute carbon source has been drawing a great research consideration of the scientific community. Therefore, rational designing of the carbon-neutral cycle for the manufacturing of green fuel is an effective architecture for future energy demand and mitigation of CO2. However, activation and transformation of CO2 is one of the biggest challenges due to its extreme inertness and slow transfer of multiple e-/H +as well as uncontrolled selectivity. Photocatalytic reduction of CO2 can stimulate the chemically inert carbon dioxide via the utilization of sunlight, it is an appealing approach for the production of solar fuels with the reduction of greenhouse gas emission. The supplying of future energy demand with simultaneous preserving environment by mitigation of CO2 is like killing two birds with one stone. Therefore, designing and engineering an artificial photosynthetic system via mimicking the natural photosynthesis in green plants using the coordination of fundamental components in a controlled manner is highly desirable. The present work provides a sketch and explore the recent start-of-the-art achievement by overcoming the obstacle of the low photoconversion performance via developing a highly efficient photocatalysts in the presence of solar energy. © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.