The design of efficient and stable photocatalysts for robust CO
2
reduction without sacrifice reagent or extra photosensitizer is still challenging. Herein, a single-atom catalyst of isolated single atom cobalt incorporated into Bi
3
O
4
Br atomic layers is successfully prepared. The cobalt single atoms in the Bi
3
O
4
Br favors the charge transition, carrier separation, CO
2
adsorption and activation. It can lower the CO
2
activation energy barrier through stabilizing the COOH* intermediates and tune the rate-limiting step from the formation of adsorbed intermediate COOH* to be CO* desorption. Taking advantage of cobalt single atoms and two-dimensional ultrathin Bi
3
O
4
Br atomic layers, the optimized catalyst can perform light-driven CO
2
reduction with a selective CO formation rate of 107.1 µmol g
−1
h
−1
, roughly 4 and 32 times higher than that of atomic layer Bi
3
O
4
Br and bulk Bi
3
O
4
Br, respectively.
Solar-driven reduction of CO , which converts inexhaustible solar energy into value-added fuels, has been recognized as a promising sustainable energy conversion technology. However, the overall conversion efficiency is significantly limited by the inefficient charge separation and sluggish interfacial reaction dynamics, which resulted from a lack of sufficient active sites. Herein, Bi O Cl superfine nanotubes with a bilayer thickness of the tube wall are designed to achieve structural distortion for the creation of surface oxygen defects, thus accelerating the carrier migration and facilitating CO activation. Without cocatalyst and sacrificing reagent, Bi O Cl nanotubes deliver high selectivity CO evolution rate of 48.6 μmol g h in water (16.8 times than of bulk Bi O Cl ), while maintaining stability even after 12 h of testing. This paves the way to design efficient photocatalysts with collaborative optimizing charge separation and CO activation towards CO photoreduction.
Owing to the easy over-oxidation, it is a promising yet challenging task to explore renewable carbon resources to control the sunlight-driven selective catalytic oxidation of biomass-derived 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), producing important chemical feedstocks, namely, less-oxidized 2,5-diformylfuran (DFF) and 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furancarboxylic acid (HMFCA). Herein, we have developed a photocatalyst by anchoring a Ru complex on CdS quantum dots, which achieves selective oxidation of HMF toward DFF or HMFCA with high conversion (> 81 %) and selectivity (> 90 %), based on the controllable generation of two oxygen radicals under different atmospheres. Such selective conversion can also work well outside the laboratory by using natural sunlight. In particular, the selective production of HMFCA through photocatalytic HMF oxidation is achieved for the first time. More importantly, our photocatalyst is applicable for the selective oxidation of other compounds with hydroxyl and aldehyde groups.
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