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Updated: Sep 16, 2025

CO2 Photoreduction to CH4 Performance Under Concentrating Solar Light
Published on: June 12, 2019
Spatially programmed regioisomeric conjugated microporous polymers modulating zinc sites for selective CO2
Xingwang Lan1, Juan Wang1, Lu Chen1
1College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology of Hebei Province, Hebei Research Center of the Basic Discipline of Synthetic Chemistry, Institute of Life Science and Green Development, Hebei University Baoding Hebei 071002 P.R. China lanxingwang@hbu.edu.cn.
Abstract:
Conjugated microporous polymers show great potential for photocatalytic CO2 reduction into value-added products. However, their catalytic activity and selectivity remain significantly limited due to poor charge separation efficiency and the lack of suitable active sites. Herein, we propose a topology-driven dipole programming strategy that synergistically decouples atomic-level electronic configuration control from spatially resolved active site engineering. Crucially, the regioisomer-dependent π-topology governs light-harvesting ability, dipole polarization hierarchy, and directional charge transport networks. As a result, the designed Zn-TPA-BPy-1, featuring dipole polarization fields and Zn-N2O2 sites, exhibits exceptional photocatalytic CO2 conversion activity, with a CH4 evolution rate of 753.18 μmol g-1 h-1 and a high selectivity of 89.7%. Experimental and theoretical results reveal that asymmetric dipole arrays lower the energy barrier for *COOH and *CO intermediates while stabilizing *CHO intermediates through dynamic charge compensation, which contribute to the high activity and selectivity. This finding offers new insights into designing polymer-photocatalysts by subtle structural modulation for CO2 conversion.
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