Au Cluster-Nanoparticle Dual Coupling for Photocatalytic CO₂ Conversion

CO₂-selective photoreduction to value-added products is ideal, but its practical application suffers from weak photogenerated carrier separation and insufficient multielectron transport. Herein, we constructed the tricomponent AuNPs@SnO₂-AuNCs hybrid by decorating Au nanoclusters (AuNCs) on the Au nanoparticle (AuNPs)@SnO₂ core-shell structure. AuNC-NP dual coupling endowed AuNPs@SnO₂-AuNCs with an excellent CO yield of 64.8 μmol g^-1 h^-1 during CO₂ photoreduction, which was higher than the role of separate application of AuNCs (25.3 μmol g^-1 h^-1) and AuNPs (16.0 μmol g^-1 h^-1). It was mainly attributed that the coaction of AuNPs and AuNCs not only enhanced the visible light absorption capacity but also improved the photogenerated carrier separation/migration. As a result, the electron-rich AuNCs induced from plasmonic AuNPs and photoexcited SnO₂ promoted the photocatalytic CO₂-to-CO performance. This work provides a new perspective to design multicomponent photocatalysts for highly efficient CO₂ conversion.