Facilitating Molecular Activation and Proton Feeding by Dual Active Sites on Polymeric Carbon Nitride for Efficient CO2 Photoreduction

Abstract

Photoreduction of CO₂ provides an appealing way to alleviate the energy crisis and manage the global carbon balance but is limited by the high activation energy and the rate-limiting proton transfer. We now develop a dual-site strategy for high-efficiency CO₂ conversion through polarizing CO₂ molecules at pyridine N vacancies and accelerating the intermediate protonation by protonated pyridine N adjacent to nitrogen vacancies on polymeric carbon nitride. Our photocatalysts with atomic-level engineered active sites manifest a high CO production rate of 1835 μmol g^-1 h^-1 , 183 times higher than the pristine bulk carbon nitride. Theoretical prediction and experimental studies confirm that such excellent performance is attributed to the synergistic effect between vacant and protonated pyridine N in decreasing the formation energy of the key *COOH intermediates and the efficient electron transfer relay facilitated by the defect-induced shallow trap state and homogeneous charge mediators.

Keywords: CO2 Reduction; Carbon Nitride; Molecular Activation; Photocatalysis; Protonation.