The increasing demand for clean energy technology has generated tremendous amount of research in the development of nanostructured materials for efficient solar harvesting to address current global energy related concerns, particularly that of CO2 conversion to hydrocarbon fuels and solar water splitting for hydrogen (H2) generation,which were recently identified as one of the world's emerging key research fields for energy applications.1-4 Of which, the increasing level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has become an important environmental issue, for which a number of carbon sequestration strategies have been pursued.1,3 Among more desirable yet challenging option is the photocatalytic conversion of CO2, especially with solar irradiation. While nanosized wide-band gap semiconductor-based systems were largely employed in such studies,1,3,4 carbon nanoparticles have recently emerged as a new class of semiconductor equivalent photoactive materials, owing to some of its excellent optical figures of merit.5-7 In this meeting, we would like to present the possibility of using quantum sized carbon particles as chromophores for energy conversion and visible-light photocatalysts for carbon dioxide conversion to organic acids such as formic acid (HCOOH), etc. as well as results supporting photoinduced redox behavior of carbon dots.8-10 Very recent results obtained in our group will be briefly summarized and possible future directions will be proposed. Our results demonstrate that nanoscale carbon particles represent a highly promising new platform for visible-light photocatalysis of CO2 conversion and beyond, competitive to that obtained with classical nanoscale semiconductor-based systems.References:     1)      Roy, S. C.; Varghese, O. K.; Paulose, M.; Grimes, C. A. ACS Nano 2010 , 4, 1259-1278. 2)      Chen, X.; Shen, S.; Guo, L.; Mao, S. S. Chem. Rev. 2010 , 110, 6503-6570. 3)      Habisreutinger, S. N.; Schmidt-Mende, L.; Stolarczyk, J. K. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2013 , 52, 2 � 39. 4)      Fan, W.; Zhang, Q.; Wang, Y.  Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 2013 , 15, 2632-2649. 5)      Sun, Y.-P.; Zhou, B.; Lin, Y.; Wang, W.; Fernando, K. A. S.; Pathak, P.; Meziani, M. J.;Harruff, B. A.; Wang, X.; Wang, H.; Luo, P. G.; Yang, H.; Kose, M. E.; Chen, P.; Veca, M.; Xie, S.-Y. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2006 , 128, 7756-7757. 6)      Baker, S. N.; Baker, G. A. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2010 , 49, 6726-6744. 7)      Li, H.; Kang, Z.; Liu, Y.; Lee, S.-T. J. Mater. Chem., 2012 , 22, 24230-24253. 8)      Cao, L.; Sahu, S.; Anilkumar, P.; Bunker, C. E.; Xu, J.; Fernando, K. A. S.; Wang, P.; Guliants, E. A.; Tackett II, K. N.; Sun, Y-P. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2011 , 133, 4754-4757. 9)      Xu, J.; Sahu, S.; Cao, L.; Anilkumar, P.; Tackett II, K. N.; Quian, H.; Bunker, C.E.; Guliants, E. A.; Parenzan, A.; Sun, Y-P. Chem Phys Chem. 2011 , 12, 3604-3608.     10)   Xu, J.; Sahu, S.; Cao, L.; Bunker, C.E.; Peng, G.; Liu, Y.; Fernando, K. A. S.; Wang, P.;    Guliants, E.A.; Meziani, M. J.; Qian, H.; Sun, Y-P. Langmuir 2012 , 28, 16141-16147.

Nanoscale carbon dots: From energy conversion to photocatalysts and mechanistic implications

247th National Meeting (2014)

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