A Review of Phosphorus Structures as CO 2 Reduction Photocatalysts.

Effective photocatalytic carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) reduction into high-value-added chemicals is promising to mitigate current energy crisis and global warming issues. Finding effective photocatalysts is crucial for photocatalytic CO 2 reduction. Currently, metal-based semiconductors for photocatalytic CO 2 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 CO 2 reduction reactions has been reported. Herein, the progresses of phosphorus structures as photocatalysts for CO 2 reduction are reviewed. The fundamentals of photocatalytic CO 2 reduction, corresponding properties of phosphorus allotropes, photocatalysts with phosphorus doping or phosphorus-containing ligands, research progress of phosphorus allotropes as photocatalysts for CO 2 reduction have been reviewed in this paper. The future research and perspective of phosphorus structures for photocatalytic CO 2 reduction are also presented.