Visible-Light-Driven CO2 Reduction by Mesoporous Carbon Nitride Modified with Polymeric Cobalt Phthalocyanine.

Souvik Roy, Erwin Reisner

OAI: oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/294557 • DOI: 10.17863/CAM.41662

The integration of molecular catalysts with low-cost, solid light absorbers presents a promising strategy to construct catalysts for the generation of solar fuels. Here, we report a photocatalyst for CO2 reduction that consists of a polymeric cobalt phthalocyanine catalyst (CoPPc) coupled with mesoporous carbon nitride (mpg-CNx ) as the photosensitizer. This precious-metal-free hybrid catalyst selectively converts CO2 to CO in organic solvents under UV/Vis light (AM 1.5G, 100 mW cm-2 , λ>300 nm) with a cobalt-based turnover number of 90 for CO after 60 h. Notably, the photocatalyst retains 60 % CO evolution activity under visible light irradiation (λ>400 nm) and displays moderate water tolerance. The in situ polymerization of the phthalocyanine allows control of catalyst loading and is key for achieving photocatalytic CO2 conversion.

CO2 reduction carbon nitride catalyst immobilization cobalt phthalocyanine photocatalysis