Infrared-Light-Driven CO<sub>2</sub> Reduction Realized by a Charge-Asymmetrical Metallic Conductor
Until now, there has been a paradox in the utilization of infrared (IR) light, which carries a significant amount of solar energy (around 50% of the spectrum), for carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) photoreduction. Given this, we propose a metallic conductor with charge-asymmetrical active sites, which realizes IR-driven CO<sub>2</sub> reduction into C<sub>2</sub> fuels using water as the reducing agent. Taking the CuInS<sub>2</sub> nanosheets as an example, their metallic nature is verified by valence-band X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and theoretical calculations, which enable IR light absorption. Their charge-asymmetrical active sites, confirmed by Bader charge calculations, promote C-C coupling. We employ cobalt atom doping to increase the asymmetric charge distribution on the Cu and In atoms in the CuInS<sub>2</sub> nanosheets, lowering the *COH-CO formation energy barrier. These results further verify that the charge-asymmetrical active sites in a metallic conductor can boost C-C coupling for generating C<sub>2</sub> products for IR-driven CO<sub>2</sub> reduction.
Authors
- Jun Hu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9468-9854)
- Junfa Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0888-4261)
- Yefeng Yu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4624-310X)
- Qinyuan Hu
- Wensheng Yan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6297-4589)
- Jiaqi Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2774-5016)
- Jianrong Zeng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4867-1893)
- Yi Xie (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1416-5557)
- Yang Pan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9360-3809)
- Xingchen Jiao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5280-9528)
- Xiaodong Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9628-329X)
- Zhixing Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7686-1956)
- Qingxia Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-9294-1438)
- Wenxiu Liu
Institutions
- Jiangnan University (CN)
- University of Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics (DE)
- Shanghai Advanced Research Institute (CN)
- National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (CN)
- Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility
- École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (CH)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nano Letters
- Published
- 2025-05-20
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5c01505
- Citations
- 10
- Primary Topic
- CO2 Reduction Techniques and Catalysts
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 3.63
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- China Scholarship Council
- National Key Research and Development Program of China