Efficient solar-driven electrocatalytic CO<sub>2</sub> reduction in a redox-medium-assisted system.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 30479340.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-018-07380-x and PMC identifier 6258760.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Solar-driven electrochemical carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) reduction is capable of producing value-added chemicals and represents a potential route to alleviate carbon footprint in the global environment. However, the ever-changing sunlight illumination presents a substantial impediment of maintaining high electrocatalytic efficiency and stability for practical applications. Inspired by green plant photosynthesis with separate light reaction and (dark) carbon fixation steps, herein, we developed a redox-medium-assisted system that proceeds water oxidation with a nickel-iron hydroxide electrode under light illumination and stores the reduction energy using a zinc/zincate redox, which can be controllably released to spontaneously reduce CO<sub>2</sub> into carbon monoxide (CO) with a gold nanocatalyst in dark condition. This redox-medium-assisted system enables a record-high solar-to-CO photoconversion efficiency of 15.6% under 1-sun intensity, and an outstanding electric energy efficiency of 63%. Furthermore, it allows a unique tuning capability of the solar-to-CO efficiency and selectivity by the current density applied during the carbon fixation.