value-added chemical feedstocks. From this perspective, photocatalytic reduction of CO 2 into CO and hydrocarbon using solar energy attracts lots of attention and provides referential significance for scientists to store intermittent renewable energy in carbon-based fuels and chemicals. [2] However, the advanced photocatalysis technique cannot exert its action where light is unavailable. It is therefore imperative to explore more strategies to expand the sources of natural energy utilization to cope with the ever-increasing CO 2 emission.Besides solar energy, there are many other renewable energies existing in nature, for example, vibration, tidal, wind energy, and so on. [3] Piezoelectric materials with non-centrosymmetric structure allow conversion of energy from vibration to electricity and vice versa, that is, a piezoelectric effect. Recently, an emerging application of piezoelectric materials based on their coupling of piezoelectric effect and electrochemistry for redox reaction have been demonstrated to realize vibration energy harvesting, [4] which is termed as piezo-electrocatalysis. Hong and coworkers proposed a piezoelectrochemical mechanism for the direct conversion of mechanical energy to electrical energy and firstly used it for water splitting in 2010 [5] and subsequently dye degradation in 2012. [6] Initially, piezo-electrocatalysis does not receive considerable attention because neither its hydrogen amount produced from water splitting nor the degradation rate of dyes can match the performance of the extensively investigated photocatalysis at that time. [7] The occurrence of turning point is that a singlelayer MoS 2 possessing superior piezoelectric performance [8] is found to exhibit ultrahigh piezo-electrocatalytic dye degradation in 2016 and hydrogen evolution activity in 2020 by Wu and coworkers. [9,10] In their work, the whole dye degradation process takes dozens of seconds and the hydrogen amount reaches ≈4000 µmol g −1 h −1 , which is the record high value among the reported piezo-electrocatalytic performance at that moment and even exceeds some photocatalytic activities to a certain extent. [10] Owing to the immensely enhanced piezo-electrocatalytic activity, further efforts have been devoted to this emerging research area, accompanied by the discovery of new applications. Kubota and coworkers reported that a method for the redox-activation of small organic molecules in response to applied mechanical energy could be developed through the piezoelectric effect. [11] Wang and coworkers reported a piezoelectrocatalytic strategy for nondestructive tooth whitening With rising CO 2 emissions caused by the massive consumption of fossil fuels, it is highly desirable to develop strategies that adopt renewable energy to convert CO 2 into value-added chemical feedstocks. Over the past decades, photocatalytic reduction of CO 2 using light energy has attracted considerable attention. However, the advanced photocatalysis techniques cannot exert their action where light is unavailable. Here, a method f...

No abstract

Recently, the bismuth‐rich strategy via increasing the bismuth content has been becoming one of the most appealing approaches to improve the photocatalytic performance of bismuth oxyhalides. However, insights into the mechanism behind the encouraging experiments are missing. Herein, we report the results of the theory‐led comprehensive picture of bismuth‐rich strategy in bismuth oxyhalide photocatalysts, selecting Bi5O7X (X = F, Cl, Br, I) as a prototype. First‐principle calculations revealed that the strategy enables good n‐type conductivity, large intrinsic internal electric field, high photoreduction ability and outstanding harvest of visible light, and particularly ranked the intrinsic activity of this family: Bi5O7F > Bi5O7I > Bi5O7Br > Bi5O7Cl. Designed experiments confirmed the theoretical predictions, and together, these results are expected to aid future development of advanced photocatalysts.

No abstract

No abstract