Solar-driven
photoreduction of CO2 into valuable fuels
offers a sustainable technology to relieve the energy crisis as well
as the greenhouse effect. Yet the exploration of highly efficient,
selective, stable, and environmental benign photocatalysts for CO2 reduction remains a major issue and challenge. The interfacial
engineering of heterojunction photocatalysts could be a valid approach
to boost the efficiency of the catalytic process. Herein, we propose
a novel covalent organic framework/metal organic framework (COF/MOF)
heterojunction photocatalyst, using olefin (CC) linked covalent
organic framework (TTCOF) and NH2–UiO-66 (Zr) (NUZ)
as representative building blocks, for enhanced CO2 reduction
to CO. The optimized TTCOF/NUZ exhibited a superior CO yield (6.56
μmol g–1 h–1) in gas–solid
system when irradiated by visible light and only with H2O (g) as weak reductant, and it was 4.4 and 5 times higher than pristine
TTCOF and NUZ, respectively. The photogenerated electrons transfer
route was proposed to follow the typical step-scheme (S-scheme), which
was affirmed by XPS, in situ XPS and EPR characterizations. The boosting
CO2 photoreduction activity could be credited to the special
charge carrier separation in S-scheme heterojunction, which can accelerate
photogenerated electrons transportation and improve the redox ability
at the interface. This work paves the way for the design and preparation
of novel COF/MOF S-scheme heterostructure photocatalysts for CO2 reduction.
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