Cu and Si co-doping on TiO2 nanosheets to modulate reactive oxygen species for efficient photocatalytic methane conversion

Jun Ma; Jingxiang Low; Di Wu; Wanbing Gong; Hengjie Liu; Dong Liu; Ran Long; Yujie Xiong

doi:10.1039/d2nh00457g

Cu and Si co-doping on TiO₂ nanosheets to modulate reactive oxygen species for efficient photocatalytic methane conversion

Nanoscale Horiz. 2022 Dec 20;8(1):63-68. doi: 10.1039/d2nh00457g.

Authors

Jun Ma^{1

2}, Jingxiang Low¹, Di Wu¹, Wanbing Gong¹, Hengjie Liu¹, Dong Liu^{1

2}, Ran Long¹, Yujie Xiong¹

Affiliations

¹ Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, School of Chemistry and Materials Science, National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, School of Nuclear Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China. dongliu@ustc.edu.cn.
² Suzhou Institute for Advanced Research, University of Science and Technology of China, Suzhou, Jiangsu 215123, China.

PMID: 36385645
DOI: 10.1039/d2nh00457g

Abstract

In this study, we successfully construct Cu and Si co-doped ultrathin TiO₂ nanosheets. As confirmed by comprehensive characterizations, Cu and Si co-doping can rationally tailor the electronic structure of TiO₂ to maneuver reactive oxygen species for effective photocatalytic methane conversion. In addition, this co-doping greatly enhances the utilization efficiency of photogenerated charges. Furthermore, it is revealed that Cu and Si co-doping can significantly boost the adsorption and activation of methane on TiO₂ nanosheets. As a result, the optimized catalyst achieves a C₂H₆ production rate of 33.8 μmol g^-1 h^-1 with a selectivity of 88.4%. This work provides insights into nanocatalyst design toward efficient photocatalytic methane conversion into value-added compounds.