Living Atomically Dispersed Cu Ultrathin TiO2 Nanosheet CO2 Reduction Photocatalyst

Zaiyong Jiang; Wei Sun; Wenkang Miao; Zhimin Yuan; Guihua Yang; Fangong Kong; Tingjiang Yan; Jiachuan Chen; Baibiao Huang; Changhua An; Geoffrey A Ozin

doi:10.1002/advs.201900289

Living Atomically Dispersed Cu Ultrathin TiO₂ Nanosheet CO₂ Reduction Photocatalyst

Adv Sci (Weinh). 2019 May 24;6(15):1900289. doi: 10.1002/advs.201900289. eCollection 2019 Aug 7.

Authors

Zaiyong Jiang^{1

2}, Wei Sun^{2

3}, Wenkang Miao¹, Zhimin Yuan¹, Guihua Yang¹, Fangong Kong¹, Tingjiang Yan², Jiachuan Chen¹, Baibiao Huang⁴, Changhua An⁵, Geoffrey A Ozin²

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Biobased Material and Green Papermaking Qilu University of Technology Shandong Academy of Sciences Jinan 250353 P.R. China.
² Department of Chemistry University of Toronto 80 St. George St. Toronto Ontario M5S 3H6 Canada.
³ State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials and School of Materials Science and Engineering Zhejiang University Hangzhou Zhejiang 310027 P.R. China.
⁴ State key Laboratory of Crystal Materials Shandong University Jinan 250100 P.R. China.
⁵ Tianjin Key Laboratory of Organic Solar Cells and Photochemical Conversion School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Tianjin University of Technology Tianjin 300384 P.R. China.

Abstract

Supported atomically dispersed metals are proving to be efficacious photocatalysts for CO₂ reduction to solar fuels. While being atom efficient, they suffer from being noble, rare, and costly (Pt, Pd, Au, Ag, Rh) and lacking in long-term stability. Herein, all of these problems are solved with the discovery that atomically dispersed Cu supported on ultrathin TiO₂ nanosheets can photocatalytically reduce an aqueous solution of CO₂ to CO. The atomically dispersed Cu can be recycled in a straightforward procedure when they become oxidatively deactivated. This advance bodes well for the development of a solar fuels technology founded on abundant, low-cost, nontoxic, atomically dispersed metal photocatalysts.

Keywords: CO2 reduction; TiO2 nanosheets; atomically dispersed Cu; co‐catalysts; photocatalysis.