Bismuth Vacancy-Induced Efficient CO₂ Photoreduction in BiOCl Directly from Natural Air: A Progressive Step toward Photosynthesis in Nature

Abstract

Photocatalytic CO₂ conversion into carbonaceous fuels through artificial photosynthesis is beneficial to global warming mitigation and renewable resource generation. However, a high cost is always required by special CO₂-capturing devices for efficient artificial photosynthesis. For achieving highly efficient photocatalytic CO₂ reduction (PCR) directly from natural air, we report rose-like BiOCl that is rich in Bi vacancies (V_Bi) assembled by nanosheets with almost fully exposed active {001} facets. These rose-like BiOCl with V_Bi assemblies provide considerable adsorption and catalytic sites, which hoists the CO₂ capture and reduction capabilities, and thus expedites the PCR to a superior value of 21.99 μmol·g^-1·h^-1 CO generation under a 300 W Xe lamp within 5 h from natural air. The novel design and construction of a photocatalyst in this work could break through the conventional PCR system requiring compression and purification for CO₂, dramatically reduce expenses, and open up new possibilities for the practical application of artificial photosynthesis.