Recent advances in solar-driven photothermal nanostructured materials for CO2 reduction: A review

Industrial pollution leads to serious air pollution, which has an enormous impact on the earth's environment. Converting greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) into value-added fuels or chemicals, such as carbon monoxide (CO), methane (CH4) and methanol (CH3OH), can effectively improve the earth's atmospheric environment. Photocatalysis and thermal catalysis are the main catalytic methods to convert CO2, but their disadvantages are high energy consumption and low conversion rate. As a new type of catalysis, photothermal catalysis, which combines photocatalysis and thermal catalysis and takes into account the advantages of both catalysts, has been widely studied and has a broader research prospect in recent years. Previously, there were relatively few reviews that classified photothermal catalysis based on different principles. In this review, photothermal catalysis is divided into photo-assisted thermocatalysis, thermal-assisted photocatalysis and photothermal co-catalysis. This article collects representative studies on photothermal catalysis in recent years and categorizes them into photo-assisted thermocatalysis, thermal-assisted photocatalysis and photothermal co-catalysis. By analyzing and comparing their reaction mechanisms and effects, it can provide readers with a more comprehensive and clear understanding of the differences in these three types of catalytic methods. Moreover, this work summarizes the general types of catalysts for each type of catalytic method, providing a comprehensive and intuitive understanding for subsequent researchers. Among them, MOFs, LDHs, Mxenes and other catalysts are used for the reduction of CO2 by H2, CO2 by H2O to generate CO, CH4 and other products. Finally, this review looks forward to and reflects on the future development and challenges of this new type of photothermal catalysis.