Renewable formate from sunlight, biomass and carbon dioxide in a photoelectrochemical cell

The sustainable production of chemicals and fuels from abundant solar energy and renewable carbon sources provides a promising route to reduce climate-changing CO 2 emissions and our dependence on fossil resources. Here, we demonstrate solar-powered formate production from readily available biomass wastes and CO 2 feedstocks via photoelectrochemistry. Non-precious NiOOH/α-Fe 2 O 3 and Bi/GaN/Si wafer were used as photoanode and photocathode, respectively. Concurrent photoanodic biomass oxidation and photocathodic CO 2 reduction towards formate with high Faradaic efficiencies over 85% were achieved at both photoelectrodes. The integrated biomass-CO 2 photoelectrolysis system reduces the cell voltage by 32% due to the thermodynamically favorable biomass oxidation over conventional water oxidation. Moreover, we show solar-driven formate production with a record-high yield of 23.3 μmol cm −2 h −1 as well as high robustness using the hybrid photoelectrode system. The present work opens opportunities for sustainable chemical and fuel production using abundant and renewable resources on earth—sunlight, biomass and CO 2 .