Glucose Modulated-Frustrated Lewis Acid-Base Pairs and Oxygen Vacancy for Enhanced Photocatalytic CO₂ Reduction

Frustrated Lewis acid-base pairs (FLPs) and oxygen vacancy (O_V) surface engineering has emerged as promising strategy to enhance photocatalytic performance for CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂RR). Nevertheless, direct controlling the concentration and stability of these FLPs and O_V has remained intricate in photocatalytic CO₂RR. Here, using cerium oxide (CeO₂) as a prototype, we develop a facile glucose-assisted strategy to construct modulated FLPs and O_V on CeO₂ with high controllability and stability. The aldehyde (─CHO) groups and hydroxyl (─OH) groups in the glucose can precisely regulates the spatial distribution and concentration of the Lewis acid sites (Ce³⁺) and Lewis basic sites (─OH groups), thereby constructing effective FLPs active sites (Ce³⁺…OH) on the CeO₂. Moreover, the abundant ─OH groups can also compensate for the O_V and reduce the concentration of O_V, thus efficiently hinder the HER competitive side reaction. The modulated FLPs and low O_V favor photocatalytic CO₂RR to carbon products with high activity (yield 326.11 µmol g^-1 h^-1) and selectivity (83.10%), and the selectivity of deeply reduced products (e > 2) can reach 61.89%. These results demonstrate the crucial impact of surface modification on reaction activity, suggesting that their existence and rational design could offer opportunities for precise regulation of catalytic processes.