Carbon microfiber layer as noble metal-catalyst support for selective CO2 photoconversion in phosphate solution: Toward artificial photosynthesis in a single-compartment reactor

•We report the electro- or photoelctro-chemical CO2 reduction in a phosphate buffer solution.•We use metal particle with carbon fiber for CO2 reduction catalyst.•The carbon fiber has the effect of improving the selectivity for CO formation on metals.•The carbon fiber provides an advantageous reaction environment for metallic CO2 reduction catalysts.

Metal catalysts are known to exhibit high selectivity for electrochemical CO2 reduction reactions only in a bicarbonate solution. Here, high selectivity was realized even in a phosphate solution using a carbon microfiber support for Au and Ag catalysts, and accordingly high selectivity in CO2 photoconversion was demonstrated in a single-compartment reactor filled with a phosphate solution.

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