Au Cluster-Nanoparticle Dual Coupling for Photocatalytic CO₂ Conversion

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Catalysis
• Environmental Science

Background:

• Photoreduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) to value-added products is crucial for sustainability.
• Challenges include poor photogenerated carrier separation and limited multielectron transport in existing catalysts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a highly efficient tricomponent photocatalyst for CO2 photoreduction.
• To investigate the synergistic effects of gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) on SnO2 for enhanced CO2 conversion.

Main Methods:

• Construction of a core-shell structure: Au nanoparticle (AuNPs)@SnO2.
• Decoration of the core-shell structure with gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) to form AuNPs@SnO2-AuNCs.
• Evaluation of photocatalytic CO2 reduction performance, specifically CO yield.

Main Results:

• The AuNPs@SnO2-AuNCs hybrid achieved a high CO yield of 64.8 μmol g-1 h-1.
• This yield surpasses that of individual AuNCs (25.3 μmol g-1 h-1) and AuNPs (16.0 μmol g-1 h-1).
• Enhanced visible light absorption and improved photogenerated carrier separation/migration were observed due to the dual coupling of AuNPs and AuNCs.

Conclusions:

• The synergistic effect between AuNPs and AuNCs significantly boosts CO2 photoreduction efficiency.
• Electron-rich AuNCs, induced by plasmonic AuNPs and photoexcited SnO2, promote CO2-to-CO conversion.
• This work offers a new strategy for designing advanced multicomponent photocatalysts for efficient CO2 utilization.