Co-embedding oxygen vacancy and copper particles into titanium-based oxides (TiO₂, BaTiO₃, and SrTiO₃) nanoassembly...

Photocatalytic CO₂ reduction into valuable fuel and chemical production has been regarded as a prospective strategy for tackling with the issues of the increasing of greenhouse gases and shortage of sustainable energy. A composite photocatalysis system employing a semiconductor enriched with oxygen vacancy and coupled with metallic cocatalyst can facilitate charge separation and transfer electrons. In this work, mesoporous TiO₂ and titanium-based perovskite oxides (BaTiO₃ and SrTiO₃) nanoparticle assembly incorporated with abundant oxygen vacancy and copper particles have been successfully synthesized for CO₂ photoreduction. As an example, the TiO₂ decorated with different amounts of Cu particles has an impact on photocatalytic CO₂ reduction into CH₄ and CO. Particularly, the optimal TiO₂/Cu-0.1 exhibits nearly 13.5 times higher CH₄ yield (22.27 μmol g^-1 h^-1) than that of pristine TiO₂ (1.65 μmol g^-1 h^-1). The as-obtained BaTiO₃/Cu-0.1 and SrTiO₃/Cu-0.1 also show enhanced CH₄ yields towards photocatalytic CO₂ reduction compared with pristine ones. Based on the temperature programmed desorption (TPD) and photo/electrochemical measurements, the co-embedding of Cu particles and abundant oxygen vacancy into the titanium-based oxides could promote CO₂ adsorption capacity as well as separation and transfer of photoinduced electron-hole pairs, and finally result in efficient CO₂ photoreduction upon the TiO₂/Cu, SrTiO₃/Cu, and BaTiO₃/Cu composites.