Three-dimensional self-attaching perovskite quantum dots/polymer platform for efficient solar-driven CO2 reduction

Abstract

A well-designed scaffold that allows the full exposure of nanophotocatalyst to reactants is equally important with an efficient catalyst material in realizing a high-performance photocatalytic reaction. In this work, we develop a three-dimensional (3D) bandgap tunable perovskite quantum dots (PQDs)/polyethersulfone (PES) monolithic film to maximize the specific area and enhance light harvesting, thereby making full use of PQDs in solar-driven CO2 reduction. The PQDs are electrostatically self-attached to the 3D PES scaffold with minimal agglomeration and clustering so that can be fully exposed to gaseous reactant and sustaining its superior high surface/volume ratio. Through composition engineering, the small-bandgap I-rich CsPbIxBr3-x PQDs along with the 3D PES scaffold achieve a high electron consumption rate of 64.90 μmol g−1 h−1, exceeding all the reported PQD-based single photocatalysts in CO2 photoreduction. Our work provides a new platform to fully exploit the perovskite nanomaterials by constructing 3D nanocatalyst/polymer film for highly efficient photocatalytic reactions.