Plasmonic Silver Modification on Bi₅O₇I Microflowers toward Boosted CO₂ Photoreduction

Photocatalytic conversion of CO₂ to renewable hydrocarbon fuels provides a sustainable avenue for mitigating the global greenhouse effect and the energy shortage crisis. However, the development of highly efficient CO₂ photoreduction catalysts remains a substantial challenge due to the weak light absorption, rapid carrier recombination, and inefficient active site. Herein, we suggest a plasmonic silver-deposited Bi₅O₇I photocatalyst synthesized via combination approaches of wet chemical and solid-state reaction methods, achieving an enhanced CO evolution rate of 23.01 μmol g^-1 h^-1 under simulated solar light without any sacrificial agents. Mechanism analysis indicated that the enhanced activity originates from the localized surface plasmon resonance effect and plasmonic metal/semiconductor junction, which can trigger stronger visible light absorption and facilitate the separation of photogenerated carriers. Moreover, the metal/semiconductor interface can provide highly efficient active sites to significantly enhance the adsorption capability of reaction intermediates and smooth the Gibbs free energy profiles, ultimately leading to superior photocatalytic CO₂ reduction (PCR) activity. To summarize, this work delivers an efficient strategy to achieve the simultaneous improvement of light absorption, carrier dynamics, and surface reaction and ultimately promote the PCR performance.