Reverse Semi-Combustion Driven by Titanium Dioxide-Ionic Liquid Hybrid Photocatalyst

Muhammad I Qadir; Marcileia Zanatta; Jose Pinto; Isabel Vicente; Aitor Gual; Emily F Smith; Brenno A D Neto; Paulo E N de Souza; Sherdil Khan; Jairton Dupont; Jesum Alves Fernandes

doi:10.1002/cssc.202001717

Reverse Semi-Combustion Driven by Titanium Dioxide-Ionic Liquid Hybrid Photocatalyst

ChemSusChem. 2020 Oct 21;13(20):5580-5585. doi: 10.1002/cssc.202001717. Epub 2020 Sep 7.

Authors

Muhammad I Qadir^{1

2}, Marcileia Zanatta^{1

3}, Jose Pinto⁴, Isabel Vicente⁵, Aitor Gual⁵, Emily F Smith⁴, Brenno A D Neto⁶, Paulo E N de Souza⁷, Sherdil Khan⁸, Jairton Dupont¹, Jesum Alves Fernandes⁴

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Chemistry, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Campus Agronomia, Porto Alegre, 90650-001, Brazil.
² Department of Nanocatalysis, J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry, Czech Academy of Sciences, Dolejškova 2155/3, 18223, Prague 8, Czech Republic.
³ i3N|Cenimat, Department of Materials Science, NOVA School of Science and Technology, NOVA University Lisbon, 2829-516, Caparica, Portugal.
⁴ School of Chemistry, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, United Kingdom.
⁵ Unitat de Tecnologíe Químiques, EURECAT, Tarragona, 43007, Spain.
⁶ Institute of chemistry, University of Brasília, Campus Universitário Darcy Ribeiro, Brasília, 70904-970, Brazil.
⁷ Institute of Physics, University of Brasília, Campus Universitário Darcy Ribeiro, Brasília, 70904-970, Brazil.
⁸ Institute of Physics, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Campus Agronomia, Porto Alegre, 90650-001, Brazil.

Abstract

Unprecedented metal-free photocatalytic CO₂ conversion to CO (up to 228±48 μmol g^-1 h^-1) was displayed by TiO₂@IL hybrid photocatalysts prepared by simple impregnation of commercially available P25-titanium dioxide with imidazolium-based ionic liquids (ILs). The high activity of TiO₂@IL hybrid photocatalysts was mainly associated to (i) TiO₂@IL red shift compared to the pure TiO₂ absorption, and thus a modification of the TiO₂ surface electronic structure; (ii) TiO₂ with IL bearing imidazolate anions lowered the CO₂ activation energy barrier. The reaction mechanism was postulated to occur via CO₂ photoreduction to formate species by the imidazole/imidazole radical redox pair, yielding CO and water.

Keywords: carbon dioxide; carbon monoxide; ionic liquids; photocatalysis; titania.

Abstract

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