Renewable formate from sunlight, biomass and carbon dioxide in a photoelectrochemical cell.
Nat Commun 2023;
14:1013. [PMID:
36823177 PMCID:
PMC9950059 DOI:
10.1038/s41467-023-36726-3]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/09/2022] [Accepted: 02/14/2023] [Indexed: 02/25/2023] Open
Abstract
The sustainable production of chemicals and fuels from abundant solar energy and renewable carbon sources provides a promising route to reduce climate-changing CO2 emissions and our dependence on fossil resources. Here, we demonstrate solar-powered formate production from readily available biomass wastes and CO2 feedstocks via photoelectrochemistry. Non-precious NiOOH/α-Fe2O3 and Bi/GaN/Si wafer were used as photoanode and photocathode, respectively. Concurrent photoanodic biomass oxidation and photocathodic CO2 reduction towards formate with high Faradaic efficiencies over 85% were achieved at both photoelectrodes. The integrated biomass-CO2 photoelectrolysis system reduces the cell voltage by 32% due to the thermodynamically favorable biomass oxidation over conventional water oxidation. Moreover, we show solar-driven formate production with a record-high yield of 23.3 μmol cm-2 h-1 as well as high robustness using the hybrid photoelectrode system. The present work opens opportunities for sustainable chemical and fuel production using abundant and renewable resources on earth-sunlight, biomass and CO2.
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