Beyond High-Purity CO₂: Material Innovations and Mechanistic Insights for Photocatalytic CO₂ Reduction under...

Global climate change and the energy crisis pose severe challenges to sustainable development, driving the urgent need for innovative carbon-neutral technological pathways. Among various potential solutions, photocatalytic CO₂ reduction technology attracts significant attention for its ability to directly utilize solar energy to convert CO₂ into high-value-added fuels and chemicals. However, in practical application environments, the low concentration of CO₂ and the pronounced inhibitory effect of oxygen on the catalytic reaction have long constrained the scalable development of this technology. This review systematically elaborates on the latest significant advancements in the field of photocatalytic CO₂ reduction under close-to-realistic conditions (containing 0.04% or 15% CO₂ and 5%-20% O₂ under simulated solar light), focusing on three main technological directions: integrated CO₂ capture and conversion, CO₂-preferential microenvironment engineering, and O₂-assisted CO₂ reduction mechanisms. These interconnected research pathways have collectively driven a paradigm shift in the field from "passively avoiding oxygen interference" to "actively harnessing oxygen synergy." This progress has preliminarily overcome key bottlenecks such as low conversion efficiency of dilute CO₂, intense competitive oxygen reduction reactions, and high energy consumption for product separation. These advancements provide the way for distributed carbon-neutral technologies and shifting CO₂ utilization from idealized systems toward real-world applications.