Photocatalytic conversion of CO2 to high-value products plays a crucial role in the global pursuit of carbon–neutral economy. Junction photocatalysts, such as the isotype heterojunctions, offer an ideal paradigm to navigate the photocatalytic CO2 reduction reaction (CRR). Herein, we elucidate the behaviors of isotype heterojunctions toward photocatalytic CRR over a representative photocatalyst, g-C3N4. Impressively, the isotype heterojunctions possess a significantly higher efficiency for the spatial separation and transfer of photogenerated carriers than the single components. Along with the intrinsically outstanding stability, the isotype heterojunctions exhibit an exceptional and stable activity toward the CO2 photoreduction to CO. More importantly, by combining quantitative in situ technique with the first-principles modeling, we elucidate that the enhanced photoinduced charge dynamics promotes the production of key intermediates and thus the whole reaction kinetics.

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High valence cobalt sites are considered as highly active centers for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and their corresponding construction is thus of primary importance to pursue outstanding performance. Herein, we...

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...

Inverted perovskite solar cells (inverted-PSCs) have exhibited advantages of longer stability, less hysteresis, and lower fabrication temperature when compared to their regular counterparts, which are important for industry commercialization. Because of the great efforts that have been conducted in the past several years, the obtained efficiency of inverted-PSCs has almost caught up with that of the regular ones, 25.0% versus 25.7%. In this perspective, the recent studies on the design of high-performance inverted-PSCs based on diverse hole transport materials, as well as device fabrication and characterization are first reviewed. After that, the authors moved on to the interface and additive engineering that were exploited to suppress the nonradiative recombination. Finally, the challenges and possible research pathways for facilitating the industrialization of inverted-PSCs were envisaged.