Toward solar-driven carbon recycling

Carbon recycling will become a dominant trend toward alleviating extreme climate change and coping with the increasing energy demand in the coming years. Solar-driven strategies have the potential to convert CO2 and solar energy to fuels and chemicals. In this forward-looking perspective, a framework is outlined to achieve a net-zero emissionblueprint by sorting out the raw sources, potential products, feasible pathways, and practical implementation through photocatalysis, photothermal catalysis, and photoelectrochemical catalysis techniques. We comprehensively inspect and compare the state-of-art works in this framework, including solardriven C-1 fuel production from CO2, as well as direct and stepwise C-2+ fuel production involving solar-driven C-1 conversion. This analysis aspires to provide the most feasible pathway forward and finds that converting CO2 with renewable H-2 into C-1 can currently obtain the best solar-to-fuel conversion efficiency and that stepwise C2+ fuel production can target products with high selectivity. Future visions on scientific, technological, and economic issues are put forward to determine what should be the focus in the following decades.

Automated summary

Carbon recycling is a dominant trend in mitigating climate change and meeting energy demands. Solar-driven strategies show potential in converting CO2 and solar energy into fuels and chemicals. This article provides a framework for achieving net-zero emissions and examines various catalytic techniques for converting CO2 into fuels, analyzing their feasibility.