Accelerated Photoreduction of CO2 to CO over a Stable Heterostructure with a Seamless Interface

Xingwang Zhu; Guli Zhou; Jianjian Yi; Penghui Ding; Jinman Yang; Kang Zhong; Yanhua Song; Yingjie Hua; Xianglin Zhu; Junjie Yuan; Yuanbin She; Huaming Li; Hui Xu

doi:10.1021/acsami.1c12692

Accelerated Photoreduction of CO₂ to CO over a Stable Heterostructure with a Seamless Interface

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2021 Aug 25;13(33):39523-39532. doi: 10.1021/acsami.1c12692. Epub 2021 Aug 13.

Authors

Xingwang Zhu^{1

2}, Guli Zhou¹, Jianjian Yi³, Penghui Ding⁴, Jinman Yang¹, Kang Zhong¹, Yanhua Song⁵, Yingjie Hua⁶, Xianglin Zhu¹, Junjie Yuan¹, Yuanbin She⁷, Huaming Li¹, Hui Xu¹

Affiliations

¹ School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Institute for Energy Research, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, P. R. China.
² Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, 4 Engineering Drive 4, Singapore 117585, Singapore.
³ College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225127, P. R. China.
⁴ Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Department of Science and Technology, Linköping University, Norrköping SE-601 74, Sweden.
⁵ School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu 212003, P. R. China.
⁶ The Key Laboratory of Electrochemical Energy Storage and Energy Conversion of Hainan Province, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hainan Normal University, Haikou 571158, China.
⁷ College of Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, P. R. China.

PMID: 34384215
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.1c12692

Abstract

Photocatalytic CO₂ reduction is a means of alleviating energy crisis and environmental deterioration. In this work, a rising two-dimensional (2D) material rarely reported in the field of photocatalytic CO₂ reduction, black phosphorus (BP) nanosheets, is synthesized, on which Co₂P is in situ grown by solvothermal treatment using BP itself as a P source. Co₂P on the BP nanosheets (BPs) surface can prevent the destruction of BPs in ambient air and, in the meantime, favor charge separation and CO₂ adsorption and activation during the catalytic process. Upon light irradiation, Co₂P can extract the photogenerated electrons effectively across the intimate interface and lower the CO₂ activation energy barrier, supported by both experimental characterizations and theoretical calculations. Benefitting from integrated advantages of BPs and Co₂P, the optimal Co₂P/BPs exhibit photocatalytic reduction of CO₂ to CO at a rate of 25.5 μmol g^-1 h^-1 with a selectivity of 91.4%, both of which are higher than those of pristine BPs. This work presents ideas for stabilizing BPs and improving their CO₂ reduction performance simultaneously.

Keywords: 2D material; CO2 conversion; Co2P; black phosphorus; charge transfer; interface; photocatalyst.