Artificial light-harvesting 2D photosynthetic systems with iron phthalocyanine/graphitic carbon nitride composites for highly efficient CO 2 reduction

• Published in: Catalysis science & technology 2021-08, Vol.11 (17), p.5952-5961
• Main Authors: Mo, Yiping, Wang, Chun, Xiao, Longfei, Chen, Wenxing, Lu, Wangyang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2044-4753; 2044-4761
• DOI: 10.1039/D1CY00858G

Photocatalytic conversion of CO 2 into value-added chemicals is considered to be a promising strategy to capture greenhouse gas as well as produce energy. The exploration of efficient and stable photocatalysts is crucial to promote CO 2 reduction. Herein, we report the synthesis of a heterogeneous catalyst by integration of iron phthalocyanine (FePc) with g-C 3 N 4 via a simple reflux method, in which FePc works as the catalytic center and g-C 3 N 4 acts as the photosensitizer. After 12 h of light irradiation, the CO yield by using the FePc/g-C 3 N 4 catalyst is found to be 1696.96 μmol g −1 and no liquid products are detected. The mechanism for CO 2 photoreduction over the FePc/g-C 3 N 4 hybrid catalyst is proposed. To enhance its practicality and portability, we further load the powder catalyst on polyester fibers (PET). The obtained FePc/g-C 3 N 4 @PET exhibits high activity for CO 2 reduction under both simulated and natural sunlight, with a CO yield of 493.35 μmol g −1 and 490.53 μmol g −1 , respectively in 12 h. This work may pave the way to develop an approach for fabricating high-efficient 2D artificial photosynthetic systems for CO 2 reduction.