Lu Kang-Qiang, Li Yue-Hua, Zhang Fan, Qi Ming-Yu, Chen Xue, Tang Zi-Rong, Yamada Yoichi M A, Anpo Masakazu, Conte Marco, Xu Yi-Jun
College of Chemistry, New Campus, Fuzhou University, 350116, Fuzhou, P. R. China.
State Key Laboratory of Photocatalysis on Energy and Environment, College of Chemistry, Fuzhou University, 350116, Fuzhou, P. R. China.
Nat Commun. 2020 Oct 14;11(1):5181. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-18944-1.
The performance of transition metal hydroxides, as cocatalysts for CO photoreduction, is significantly limited by their inherent weaknesses of poor conductivity and stacked structure. Herein, we report the rational assembly of a series of transition metal hydroxides on graphene to act as a cocatalyst ensemble for efficient CO photoreduction. In particular, with the Ru-dye as visible light photosensitizer, hierarchical Ni(OH) nanosheet arrays-graphene (Ni(OH)-GR) composites exhibit superior photoactivity and selectivity, which remarkably surpass other counterparts and most of analogous hybrid photocatalyst system. The origin of such superior performance of Ni(OH)-GR is attributed to its appropriate synergy on the enhanced adsorption of CO, increased active sites for CO reduction and improved charge carriers separation/transfer. This work is anticipated to spur rationally designing efficient earth-abundant transition metal hydroxides-based cocatalysts on graphene and other two-dimension platforms for artificial reduction of CO to solar chemicals and fuels.
过渡金属氢氧化物作为光催化还原CO的助催化剂，其性能受到导电性差和堆积结构等固有弱点的显著限制。在此，我们报道了一系列过渡金属氢氧化物在石墨烯上的合理组装，以作为高效光催化还原CO的助催化剂体系。特别是，以钌染料作为可见光光敏剂，分级结构的Ni(OH)纳米片阵列-石墨烯（Ni(OH)-GR）复合材料表现出优异的光活性和选择性，显著超越其他同类材料以及大多数类似的复合光催化剂体系。Ni(OH)-GR这种优异性能的根源在于其在增强CO吸附、增加CO还原活性位点以及改善电荷载流子分离/转移方面具有适当的协同作用。这项工作有望推动在石墨烯和其他二维平台上合理设计高效的、基于地球丰富元素的过渡金属氢氧化物助催化剂，用于将CO人工还原为太阳能化学品和燃料。
