Design of Crystalline Reduction-Oxidation Cluster-Based Catalysts for Artificial Photosynthesis.

Metal cluster-based compounds have difficulty finishing the photocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CORR) and water oxidation reaction (WOR) simultaneously because of the big challenge in realizing the coexistence of independently and synergistically reductive and oxidative active sites in one compound. Herein, we elaborately designed and synthesized one kind of crystalline reduction-oxidation () cluster-based catalysts connecting reductive { } (M = Zn, Co, and Ni for , , respectively) cluster and oxidative {PMoVO} cluster through a single oxygen atom bridge to achieve artificial photosynthesis successfully. These clusters can all photocatalyze CO-to-CO and HO-to-O reactions simultaneously, of which the CO yield of is 13.8 μmol/g·h, and the selectivity is nearly 100%. Density functional theory calculations reveal that the concomitantly catalytically reductive and oxidative active sites (for CORR and WOR, respectively) and the effective electron transfer between the sites in these photocatalysts are the key factors to complete the overall photosynthesis.