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.