Integrated Photothermal Nanoreactors for Efficient Hydrogenation of CO2
Jiahui Shen, Rui Tang, Zhiyi Wu, Xiao Wang, Mingyu Chu, Mujin Cai, Chengcheng Zhang, Liang Zhang, Kui Yin, Le He, Chaoran Li
Abstract
Abstract To alleviate the energy crisis and global warming, photothermal catalysis is an attractive way to efficiently convert CO 2 and renewable H 2 into value-added fuels and chemicals. However, the catalytic performance is usually restricted by the trade-off between the dispersity and light absorption property of metal catalysts. Here we demonstrate a simple SiO 2 -protected metal–organic framework pyrolysis strategy to fabricate a new type of integrated photothermal nanoreactor with a comparatively high metal loading, dispersity, and stability. The core-satellite structured Co@SiO 2 exhibits strong sunlight-absorptive ability and excellent catalytic activity in CO 2 hydrogenation, which is ascribed to the functional separation of different sizes of Co nanoparticles. Large-sized plasmonic Co nanoparticles are mainly responsible for the light absorption and conversion to heat (nanoheaters), whereas small-sized Co nanoparticles with high intrinsic activities are responsible for the catalysis (nanoreactors). This study provides a new concept for designing efficient photothermal catalytic materials.