Orderly Drawing Photo-Thermal Synergistic Electron Flow for Efficient CO<sub>2</sub> Reduction under Natural Sunlight.

Yu, Fangbo; Ren, Yilong; Guo, Penghui; Huang, Fuxia; Bai, Shengjie; Wang, Feng; Ding, Xue; Jiao, Zihao et al. · Adv Mater · 2026

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Photocatalysis is a green promising approach for CO<sub>2</sub> reduction. Metal sulfides are widely studied in this field due to the high-efficiency, however, most of them are prone to photo-corrosion. Herein, a stable and efficient Z-scheme heterojunction catalyst is reported, Fe<sub>x</sub>In<sub>y</sub>S<sub>z</sub>/TiO<sub>2</sub> owing an orderly drawing photo-thermal synergistic electron flow for CO<sub>2</sub> reduction in a field experiment. The tests under natural sunlight conditions demonstrated that Fe<sub>x</sub>In<sub>y</sub>S<sub>z</sub>/TiO<sub>2</sub> has a stability of 4 natural days. The maximum photothermal energy conversion efficiency is 1.16%, which is the highest record under concentrated natural sunlight for CO<sub>2</sub> reduction with pure water. The in situ rapid-scan XANES and XPS show the raising temperature and photo-irradiation synergistically stretch electrons from O to Fe, revealing the mechanism of thermal modulation to optimize the active sites for efficient and stable photocatalytic CO<sub>2</sub> reduction. This work pioneers the stable and efficient reduction of CO<sub>2</sub> under outdoor sunlight conditions, providing a theoretical foundation for the outdoor application of this technology.