Highly Improved Solar Energy Harvesting for Fuel Production from CO2 by a Newly Designed Graphene Film Photocatalyst

Abstract

Our growing energy demands must be met by a sustainable supply with reduced carbon intensity. One of the most exciting prospects to realize this goal is the photocatalyst-biocatalyst integrated artificial photosynthesis system which affords solar fuel/chemicals in high selectivity from CO2. Graphene based photocatalysts are highly suitable for the system, but their industrial scale use requires immobilization for improved separation and recovery of the photocatalyst. Therefore for practical purposes, design and fabrication of film type graphene photocatalyst with higher solar energy conversion efficiency is an absolute necessity. As a means to achieve this, we report herein the successful development of a new type of flexible graphene film photocatalyst that leads to >225% rise in visible light harvesting efficiency of the resultant photocatalyst-biocatalyst integrated artificial photosynthesis system for highly selective solar fuel production from CO2 compared to conventional spin coated graphene film photocatalyst. It is an important step towards the design of a new pool of graphene film based photocatalysts for artificial photosynthesis of solar fuels from CO2.

2D Nanomaterials for Effective Energy Scavenging

“…The water-splitting process includes both the photoelectrochemical (PEC) and photocatalytic reaction (PC), but PEC is more attractive due to the production of O 2 and H 2 separately at different electrodes, thereby reducing the problem of oxygen and hydrogen separation [ 76 ]. A graphene-based hybrid artificial photosynthesis has been introduced by integrating a photocatalyst and biocatalyst for producing fuel from CO 2 with a 225% increase in efficiency compared to a conventional graphene film-based photocatalyst [ 77 ]. Figure 3 j, k shows the photocatalytic activity and production of NADH (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) + hydrogen (H)) and formic acid from CO 2 , which is derived from GF, DdIC chromophore, granulated graphene-DdIC, GFPC 1 (graphene film photocatalyst 1), and GFPC 2 (graphene film photocatalyst 2).…”

“…The photocurrent evaluation in Fig. 3 l indicates that GFPC has 10 times more current than DdIC chromophore, suggesting that GFPC is more effective at photocatalytic energy scavenging [ 77 ]. Harvesting solar energy effectively, 2D nanomaterials face difficulties in fabricating high-quality PSCs related to long-term and operational stability [ 66 ].…”

In Situ Prepared Solar Light‐Driven Flexible Actuated Carbon Cloth‐Based Nanorod Photocatalyst for Selective Radical–Radical Coupling to Vinyl Sulfides

“…A number of factors such as suitable band gap, multielectron transfer capability and photo-stability are essential for an efficient photocatalysts. In this context, many researchers were functionalized the surface of graphene and graphitic carbon nitride for promoting the solar light harvesting properties and also tune the suitable band gap (25,26).…”

Bio-inspired graphene-coated ball screws: Novel approach to reduce the thermal deformation of ball screws

“…22,23 As a strictly two-dimensional material, it displays excellent electrical and thermal conductivities; for future applications, it will be crucial to understand heat generation and dissipation from graphene-based devices. 24–27 It has already been applied successfully to coating, 28,29 rubber, 30–32 fuel cells, 33–35 automobile and deicing defogging systems. 36–38 Moreover, it was newly reported a novel type of blackbody material based on a graphene nanostructure, which has an emissivity greater than 0.99 over a wide range of wavelengths, and behaves as a standard blackbody material.…”