Solar panels are well established to produce electricity as photovoltaic cells and are already in development to photo-catalyse overall water splitting to produce green hydrogen as artificial leaves or photocatalyst sheets.^1,2 This presentation will introduce solar chemistry panels as an emerging technology to enable sunlight-powered circular carbon chemistry. Our progress in designing and constructing prototype solar devices for the direct conversion of carbon dioxide as well as the valorisation of biomass and plastic waste streams into renewable fuels and higher-value chemicals will be presented. 

Specifically, a standalone artificial leaf based on an integrated lead halide perovskite-BiVO₄ tandem light absorber architecture with immobilised molecular catalysts has been created for solar CO₂ reduction to produce syngas (CO and H₂) fuel coupled to oxygen (O₂) evolution from water oxidation.³ Further manufacturing advances have enabled the reduction of material requirements to fabricate light weight devices that float on water, thereby enabling applications on open water sources instead of requiring land for installation.⁴ The versatile tandem design also allows for the integration of biocatalysts and thus the assembly of semi-artificial photosynthetic devices, demonstrating selective and bias-free conversion of CO₂-to-formate using immobilised enzymes.⁵ Recent progress in catalyst-development has allowed us to show carbon-carbon bond formation and the direct production of ethanol and propanol directly from CO₂, establishing artificial photosynthesis to produce liquid multicarbon fuels.⁶ The encapsulated perovskite photoelectrodes also provide a platform for the assembly of wireless solar devices for the valorisation of biomass and plastic waste through solar reforming (instead of oxidising water), ^7,8 as well as the coupling to CO₂-to-fuel conversion,⁸ including atmospheric CO₂ through integrated direct air capture.⁹ 

An alternative solar carbon capture and utilisation technology is based on co-deposited semiconductor powders on a conducting substrate.² Modification of these immobilised powders with a molecular catalyst provides us with a photocatalyst sheet that can cleanly produce formate from aqueous CO₂ while co-producing O₂.¹⁰ CO₂-fixing bacteria grown on such tandem photocatalyst sheets enable the production of multicarbon products through clean CO2-to-acetate conversion.¹¹ The deposition of a single semiconductor material on glass allows sunlight-driven plastic and biomass waste upcycling to organic products coupled to hydrogen evolution or CO₂-to-fuel conversion, thereby allowing for simultaneous waste remediation and fuel production.^12,13  

The concept and prospect of integrated solar chemistry panels for artificial photosynthesis and solar reforming,^14,15 strategies to improve light management in such devices¹⁶ and their relevance to secure and harness sustainable energy supplies in a circular economy will be discussed.