Facet engineering of MOF supports regulates product selectivity in CO<sub>2</sub> photoreduction by modulating electron and proton supply to COF shells
Selective photoreduction of CO<sub>2</sub> with H<sub>2</sub>O to hydrocarbons is challenged by inadequate and uncontrollable electron and proton feeding. Herein, this limitation is overcome by integrating H<sub>2</sub>O dissociation, CO<sub>2</sub> reduction, and O<sub>2</sub> evolution catalysts into a dual S-scheme heterojunction and regulating exposed facets of the heterojunction supports. In this design, H<sup>+</sup> and OH<sup>-</sup> species generated by H<sub>2</sub>O dissociation on the NH<sub>2</sub>-MIL-125 support transfer to the T-COF shell and Fe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> insert for CO<sub>2</sub> reduction and O<sub>2</sub> evolution, respectively. Mechanistic investigations reveal that increasing NH<sub>2</sub>-MIL-125{001} facet exposure promotes proton spillover, while simultaneously causing more active electrons to accumulate on the T-COF instead of NH<sub>2</sub>-MIL-125. This suppresses H<sub>2</sub> evolution on the NH<sub>2</sub>-MIL-125 core, directing more protons to the T-COF shell for CO<sub>2</sub> reduction. Consequently, the *CO intermediate becomes more prone to hydrogenation to CH<sub>4</sub> rather than desorption to CO or C-C coupling to form C<sub>2</sub> products, thereby progressively increasing CH<sub>4</sub> production while decreasing H<sub>2</sub>, CO, C<sub>2</sub>H<sub>4</sub>, and C<sub>2</sub>H<sub>6</sub> evolution. The three-in-one heterojunction with the highest proportion of NH<sub>2</sub>-MIL-125{001} facets achieves a remarkable CH<sub>4</sub> productivity of 154.3 μmol g<sub>cat</sub> <sup>-1</sup> h<sup>-1</sup> with a selectivity of 87.4%. This work highlights the synergistic advantages of heterojunction construction and facet engineering in concurrently optimizing electron and proton supply for CO<sub>2</sub> hydrogenation.
Authors
- Song Bai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9563-3067)
- Shuxian Zhong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3131-8340)
- Linyi Wu
- Sheng Chang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1576-3505)
- Leihong Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5014-4964)
- Shenglan Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8517-4792)
- Zengrong Li
- Yuling Zhao
- Dongmei Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8221-7144)
- Yue Yao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8636-5593)
- Ruowen Shao
- Hulin Shi
Institutions
- Zhejiang Normal University (CN)
- Ministry of Education (PT)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Chemical Science
- Published
- 2025-01-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1039/d5sc03122b
- Citations
- 12
- Primary Topic
- Advanced Photocatalysis Techniques
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 4.36
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province