Solar-driven liquid multi-carbon fuel production using a standalone perovskite–BiVO4 artificial leaf

Motiar Rahaman, Virgil Andrei, Demelza Wright, Erwin Lam, Chanon Pornrungroj, Subhajit Bhattacharjee, Christian M. Pichler, Heather F. Greer, Jeremy J. Baumberg and Erwin Reisner ()
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Motiar Rahaman: University of Cambridge
Virgil Andrei: University of Cambridge
Demelza Wright: University of Cambridge
Erwin Lam: University of Cambridge
Chanon Pornrungroj: University of Cambridge
Subhajit Bhattacharjee: University of Cambridge
Christian M. Pichler: University of Cambridge
Heather F. Greer: University of Cambridge
Jeremy J. Baumberg: University of Cambridge
Erwin Reisner: University of Cambridge

Nature Energy, 2023, vol. 8, issue 6, 629-638

Abstract: Abstract The synthesis of high-energy-density liquid fuels from CO2 and H2O powered by sunlight has the potential to create a circular economy. Despite the progress in producing simple gaseous products, the construction of unassisted photoelectrochemical devices for liquid multi-carbon production remains a major challenge. Here we assembled artificial leaf devices by integrating an oxide-derived Cu94Pd6 electrocatalyst with perovskite–BiVO4 tandem light absorbers that couple CO2 reduction with water oxidation. The wired Cu94Pd6|perovskite–BiVO4 tandem device provides a Faradaic efficiency of ~7.5% for multi-carbon alcohols (~1:1 ethanol and n-propanol), whereas the wireless standalone device produces ~1 µmol cm−2 alcohols after 20 h unassisted operation under air mass 1.5 G irradiation with a rate of ~40 µmol h−1 gCu94Pd6−1. This study demonstrates the direct production of multi-carbon liquid fuels from CO2 over an artificial leaf and, therefore, brings us a step closer to using sunlight to generate value-added complex products.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1038/s41560-023-01262-3

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