Recent Advances on Metalloporphyrin-Based Materials for Visible-Light-Driven CO₂ Reduction

Photocatalytic CO₂ reduction is a promising technology to mitigate environmental issue and the energy crisis. The four nitrogen atoms in the porphyrin ring can incorporate transition metals to form stable active sites for CO₂ activation and photoreduction. Nevertheless, the photocatalytic efficiency of metalloporphyrins is still low due to the insufficient photoelectron injection to drive CO₂ photoreduction upon visible light irradiation. To address this issue, considerable efforts have been made to introduce photosensitizers for constructing homogeneous or heterogeneous metalloporphyrin-based photocatalytic systems. In this Review, recent advances of metalloporphyrin-based materials for visible-light-driven CO₂ reduction were summarized. The methods for the modulation of photosensitizing process at molecular level were presented for the promotion of photocatalytic performance. The mechanism of CO₂ activation and photocatalytic conversion was illustrated. Better insight into the structure-activity relationship provides guidance to the design of metalloporphyrin-related photocatalytic systems.