UV-visible-infrared light driven photothermal synergistic catalytic reduction of CO over CsBiBr/MoS S-scheme photocatalyst.

Photothermocatalytic CO reduction has been considered as a green and sustainable strategy for solar-to-fuel conversion, since it can utilize the solar energy to simultaneously provide heat input and produce photogenerated charge carriers. To this end, exploring photothermal catalysts with broad-band absorption, high photo-heat conversion and charge separation efficiency is highly desirable. In this work, an innovative CsBiBr/MoS (CBB/MoS) composite has been elaborately constructed to investigate the photothermocatalytic performance towards CO reduction. In this composite, MoS plays dual roles: with photoinduced self-heating effect, it can act as an extra heater to accelerate the catalytic reaction, and meanwhile serves as a cocatalyst to promote charge separation by forming S-scheme heterojunction with CBB. As expected, the developed CBB/MoS composite delivered outstanding photothermocatalytic activity for CO reduction without any extra heat input, with the CO production rate reaching 172.79 μmol gh. As confirmed by experimental tests and theoretical calculations, the superior photothermocatalytic CO reduction performance of CBB/MoS was attributed to the synergetic effect of high photo-thermo transformation efficiency and highly improved charge separation. The present work offers a potential strategy for developing highly-efficient photothermal catalysts used in artificial photosynthesis.