A Review of Phosphorus Structures as CO2 Reduction Photocatalysts

Effective photocatalytic carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction into high-value-added chemicals is promising to mitigate current energy crisis and global warming issues. Finding effective photocatalysts is crucial for photocatalytic CO2 reduction. Currently, metal-based semiconductors for photocatalytic CO2 reduction have been well reviewed, while review of nonmetal-based semiconductors is almost limited to carbon nitrides. Phosphorus is a promising nonmetal photocatalysts with various allotropes and tunable band gaps, which has been demonstrated to be promising non-metallic photocatalysts. However, no systematic review about phosphorus structures for photocatalytic CO2 reduction reactions has been reported. Herein, the progresses of phosphorus structures as photocatalysts for CO2 reduction are reviewed. The fundamentals of photocatalytic CO2 reduction, corresponding properties of phosphorus allotropes, photocatalysts with phosphorus doping or phosphorus-containing ligands, research progress of phosphorus allotropes as photocatalysts for CO2 reduction have been reviewed in this paper. The future research and perspective of phosphorus structures for photocatalytic CO2 reduction are also presented.