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Updated: Jan 10, 2026

CO2 Photoreduction to CH4 Performance Under Concentrating Solar Light
Published on: June 12, 2019
Spatially Separated C-C Coupling and Protonation on Cl-Bridged Ti-Ag Dual-Site Catalysts for Efficient Photocatalytic
Haoran Du1,2, Yangjie Fu3, Rou Shi2
1Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials and Research Institute of Industrial Catalysis, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, P.R. China.
Abstract:
Solar-driven selective reduction of CO2 to C2H4 conversion is bottlenecked by the concurrent demands for intermediate protonation and C-C coupling. Herein, we constructed a chlorine (Cl)-bridged Ti-Ag dual-site catalysts to overcome above issues. The introduction of Cl on Ti-Ag dual sites spatially separates C-C coupling and intermediate protonation, making *CO dimerization thermodynamically more favorable than *CO hydrogenation. In situ characterization and DFT calculations reveal that the Cl enables the Ti sites within the Ti─Cl─Ag configuration act as active center for CO2 activation and C-C coupling, thereby increasing the *CO intermediate concentration and lowering the C-C coupling energy barrier. Concurrently, Ag sites preferentially catalyze H2O dissociation, providing active hydrogen for the subsequent protonation of *OCCO intermediates, thus increasing the overall C2H4 formation rate. The optimized Ti─Cl─Ag catalysts achieve high C2H4 production rate of 244 µmol·g-1·h-1 with 64.3% selectivity, outperforming O-bridged Ti-Ag catalysts which mainly favor *CO deep hydrogenation. This work establishes spatially separated Ti-Ag dual sites that orchestrates site-specific C-C coupling and active hydrogen feeding, providing a rational design concept of photocatalysts for selective reduction of CO2 to C2H4.
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