Electrocatalytic reduction of carbon monoxide with a photocell

It has been shown that CO can be reduced with an electrochemical photocell to methanol in the presence of ethanol and pentachlorochromate(III), bis(oxalato)chromate(III) or iron(III)-tiron complex. The photocell was composed of n-CdS and Everitt's salt-modified platinum electrodes, operating as the photoanode and the cathode, respectively. The current efficiency was 1.0–5.2%, i.e. very low compared with the value (about 100%) obtained in the catalytic system containing methanol instead of ethanol, which was attributed to lower efficiency of the CO uptake by the metal complex-ethanol catalytic system.