Molecular Terpyridine-Lanthanide Complexes Modified Carbon Nitride for Enhanced Photocatalytic CO₂ Reduction

Molecule/semiconductor hybrid catalysts, which combine molecular metal complexes with semiconductors, have shown outstanding performances in photocatalytic CO₂ reduction. In this work, we report two hybrid catalysts for the selective photoreduction of CO₂ to CO. One is composed of carbon nitride and a terpyridine-Lu complex (denoted as LutpyCN), and the other is composed of carbon nitride and a terpyridine-Ce complex (denoted as CetpyCN). Compared with pristine carbon nitride, the hybrid catalysts LutpyCN and CetpyCN display a noteworthy increase in CO generation, boosting the yield by approximately 176 times and 106 times, respectively. Mechanistic studies demonstrate that such significant enhancement in photocatalysis is primarily due to more efficient separation of photogenerated carriers for hybrid catalysts after modifying CN with molecular terpyridine-lanthanide species.