Solar-driven CO₂ reduction by abundant water to alcohols can supply sustainable liquid fuels and alleviate global warming. This study demonstrates that microwave-synthesized carbon-dots (mCDs) possess unique hole-accepting properties, prolonging the electron lifetime of carbon nitride (CN) and favoring six-electron product formation. mCD-decorated CN stably produces stoichiometric oxygen and methanol from water and CO₂ with nearly 100% selectivity to methanol and an internal quantum efficiency of 2.1% in the visible region. mCD rapidly extracts holes from CN, preventing methanol surface adsorption and enhancing selective CO₂ reduction to alcohols.

Yiou Wang, Xu Liu, Xiaoyu Han, Robert Godin, Jialu Chen, Wuzong Zhou, Chaoran Jiang, Jamie F. Thompson, K. Bayazit Mustafa, Stephen A. Shevlin, James R. Durrant, Zhengxiao Guo, Junwang Tang