Solar-Driven Water-Gas Shift Reaction over CuO_x /Al₂ O₃ with 1.1 % of Light-to-Energy Storage

Hydrogen production from coal gasification provides a cleaning approach to convert coal resource into chemical energy, but the key procedures of coal gasification and thermal catalytic water-gas shift (WGS) reaction in this energy technology still suffer from high energy cost. We herein propose adopting a solar-driven WGS process instead of traditional thermal catalysis, with the aim of greatly decreasing the energy consumption. Under light irradiation, the CuO_x /Al₂ O₃ delivers excellent catalytic activity (122 μmol g_cat ^-1  s^-1 of H₂ evolution and >95 % of CO conversion) which is even more efficient than noble-metal-based catalysts (Au/Al₂ O₃ and Pt/Al₂ O₃ ). Importantly, this solar-driven WGS process costs no electric/thermal power but attains 1.1 % of light-to-energy storage. The attractive performance of the solar-driven WGS reaction over CuO_x /Al₂ O₃ can be attributed to the combined photothermocatalysis and photocatalysis.