The use of CO2 for the production of fuels and chemicals has attracted much attention under the current background of the depletion of fossil resources and the increase of emissions of CO2. However, the activation of CO2, a very stable molecule, is one of the biggest challenges in chemistry. In the long term, the photocatalytic conversion of CO2 using solar energy, that is, the artificial photosynthesis, is the most attractive route for the transformation of CO2 to fuels and chemicals.

Herein, Prof. Ye Wang’s group presents a new strategy for the design and preparation of efficient binary co-catalysts for the preferential reduction of CO2 in the presence of H2O. They prepared TiO2 (Degussa P25)-loaded Pt and Cu binary co-catalysts by a stepwise photodeposition technique. Their present work has demonstrated that the preparation of a core–shell-structured Pt@Cu2O co-catalyst can significantly promote the photocatalytic reduction of CO2 with H2O to CH4 and CO. It is proposed that the Cu2O shell provides sites for the preferential activation and conversion of CO2 molecules in the presence of H2O, while the Pt core extracts the photogenerated electrons from TiO2. The deposition of a Cu2O shell on Pt markedly suppresses the reduction of H2O to H2, a competitive reaction with the reduction of CO2. They expect that further optimization of the chemical compositions of the core and the shell may further improve the photocatalytic activity for CO2 reduction with H2O in the future. Their work is published on Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. (2013, 52, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201301473).

Source: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201301473/abstract