Defect Engineering of Photocatalysts towards Elevated CO Reduction Performance.

Photocatalytic CO reduction provides a promising solution to address the crises of massive CO emissions and fossil energy shortages. As one of the most effective strategies to promote CO photoconversion, defect engineering shows great potential in modulating the electronic structure and light absorption properties of photocatalysts while increasing surface active sites for CO activation and conversion. This Review summarizes the recent progress in defect engineering of photocatalysts to promote CO reduction performances from the following four aspects: 1) Approaches to defect (mainly vacancy and dopant) generation in photocatalysts; 2) defect structure characterization techniques; 3) physical and chemical properties of defect-engineered photocatalysts; 4) CO reduction performance enhancements in activity, selectivity, and stability of photocatalysts by defect engineering. This Review is expected to present readers with a comprehensive view of progress in the field of photocatalytic CO reduction through defect engineering for elevated CO -to-fuels conversion efficiency.