Chinese Journal of Catalysis ›› 2020, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (1): 131-139.DOI: 10.1016/S1872-2067(19)63393-0

• Photocatalytic CO2 reduction • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Solar-heating boosted catalytic reduction of CO2 under full-solar spectrum

Hongjia Wanga,b, Yanjie Wanga, Lingju Guoa, Xuehua Zhanga, Caue Ribeiroc,d, Tao Hea,b   

  1. a CAS Laboratory of Nanosystem and Hierarchical Fabrication, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing 100190, China;
    b University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;
    c National Nanotechnology Laboratory for Agribusiness, Embrapa Instrumentation, 13561-206, São Carlos-SP, Brazil;
    d Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH-Institute of Energy and Climate Research-IEK-3/Electrochemical Process Engineering, Jülich 52425, Germany
  • Received:2019-04-12 Revised:2019-05-05 Online:2020-01-18 Published:2019-10-22
  • Supported by:
    This work was supported by the Belt and Road Initiative by Chinese Academy of Sciences and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21673052, 11404074). Supporting Information associated with this article can be found in the online version, including EDX and XPS spectra of Au/rutile and rutile samples, and the plots used to determine Ea.

Abstract: Catalytic converting CO2 into fuels with the help of solar energy is regarded as 'dream reaction', as both energy crisis and environmental issue can be mitigated simultaneously. However, it is still suffering from low efficiency due to narrow solar-spectrum utilization and sluggish heterogeneous reaction kinetics. In this work, we demonstrate that catalytic reduction of CO2 can be achieved over Au nanoparticles (NPs) deposited rutile under full solar-spectrum irradiation, boosted by solar-heating effect. We found that UV and visible light can initiate the reaction, and the heat from IR light and local surface-plasmon resonance relaxation of Au NPs can boost the reaction kinetically. The apparent activation energy is determined experimentally and is used to explain the superior catalytic activity of Au/rutile to rutile in a kinetic way. We also find the photo-thermal synergy in the Au/rutile system. We envision that this work may facilitate understanding the kinetics of CO2 reduction and developing feasible catalytic systems with full solar spectrum utilization for practical artificial photosynthesis.

Key words: CO2 reduction, Apparent activation energy, Reaction kinetics, Solar heating, Photo-thermal synergy