Highly Active Photoreduction of Atmospheric‐Concentration CO<sub>2</sub> into CH<sub>3</sub>COOH over Palladium Particles on Nb<sub>2</sub>O<sub>5</sub> Nanosheets
Jinyu Ding, Peijin Du, Peipei Li, Wenxiu Liu, Jiaqi Xu, Yan Wensheng, Yang Pan, Jun Hu, Junfa Zhu, Qingxia Chen, Xingchen Jiao, Yie Xie
Abstract
Abstract The endeavor to drive CO 2 photoreduction towards the synthesis of C 2 products is largely thwarted by the colossal energy hurdle inherent in C−C coupling. Herein, we load active metal particles on metal oxide nanosheets to build the dual metal pair sites for steering C−C coupling to form C 2 products. Taking Pd particles anchored on the Nb 2 O 5 nanosheets as an example, the high‐angle annular dark‐field image and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy demonstrate the presence of Pd−Nb metal pair sites on the Pd‐Nb 2 O 5 nanosheets. Density functional theory calculations reveal these sites exhibit a low reaction energy barrier of only 1.02 eV for C−C coupling, implying that the introduction of Pd particles effectively tailors the reaction step to form C 2 products. Therefore, the Pd‐Nb 2 O 5 nanosheets achieve a CH 3 COOH evolution rate of 13.5 μmol g −1 h −1 in photoreduction of atmospheric‐concentration CO 2 , outshining all other single photocatalysts reported to date under analogous conditions.