Issue 22/2018 - New progress in the synthesis of solar fuels by artificial light

New progress
in the research of artificial photosynthesis of solar fuels Artificial photosynthetic solar fuel refers to the process of converting_H2Oand_CO2 into chemical fuels through photocatalysis, photocatalysis or electrocatalysis using renewable energy such as solar energy, which is a difficult problem
in the scientific community.
Recently, Academician Li Can of the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Professor Wang Xuxu's research group of Fuzhou University cooperated to develop a solid-state Z-mechanism composite photocatalyst to efficiently convert_H2Oand_CO2 into methane (natural gas) under visible light, realizing the process of solar artificial photosynthesis of fuels, providing a new way for artificial light synthesis of solar fuels.
Am.
Chem
.
Soc.

In this work, nanocrystals (3D-SiC) and two-dimensional nanosheets (2D-MoS2) were used to construct a marigold-type nanoflower catalyst by electrostatic assembly technology, which has a two-type heterojunction and Z-scheme semiconductor configuration
.
The 3D-SiC@2D-MoS₂ catalyst exhibited methane yields of up to 323 μL·g-1·h-1 and oxygen release of 620 μL ·g-1·^h-1 under visible light irradiation, and 1.
75
。 This is the highest yield of_CO2 total reduction reaction with pure water under visible light
currently reported.
The stoichiometric ratio of oxygen and methane (oxygen/methane molar ratio is close to 2) can be detected during this study, and isotopic experiments also confirm the formation of stoichiometric oxygen, which has important reference significance
for the academic community to understand and carry out artificial photosynthesis.