Seminal work on CO2 photoreduction published on the route to solar fuels

Yi-Jun Xu and Mario Pagliaro Palermo and Fozhou, 1-Dec-2015 - The Journal of Physical Chemistry C publishes today a research paper from the teams Yi-Jun Xu at Fuzhou University and Mario Pagliaro at Italy's Research Council on the photocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide with water in the gas-phase under solar light irradiation.

This seminal work describes a new catalyst comprised of core–shell structured TiO2@SiO2 composites synthesized via a simple sol–gel method which is remarkbly more photoactive than bare titania toward CO2 reduction.

A variety of carefully blank tests in which the very same system were carried out without CO2 (and with and without O2 and water, or under nitrogen, etc) in order to check for potential product formation from carbon containing contaminants. No CO and H2 formation was detected pointing to authentic photoreduction observations.

"This work -- comment the Authors -- will inspire further work in utilizing the silica coating method as well as other proper core–shell strategies to tune the activity and selectivity of semiconductor-based materials for artificial photoreduction of carbon dioxide to value-added solar fuels".

Once a sufficiently active, low cost photocatalyst will be available, mankind will be able to convert carbon dioxide and water produced by hydrocarbon combustion back into carbon monoxide and hydrogen, from which practically every organic chemical can be derived from well known Fischer-Tropsch chemistry dating back to the early part of the 20th century still carried out at petrochemical plants worldwide.

Professor Yi-Jun Xu leads in China a world's leading research Group in photocatalysis, whose outcomes include a number of new catalysts suitable including artificial photoredox processes including degradation of pollutants, selective organic transformation (e.g., selective C-H activation and oxidation of glycerol in water), water splitting and photoreduction of CO2 to solar fuels, which are intimately related to the key issues on energy and environment that we strive to resolve today.

The Group is renowned also for having developed various strategies on harnessing the structure and electronic features of graphene toward enhanced photoactivity.

Dr Pagliaro leads in Sicily a research Group which is today one of Europe's primary research centres in the field of nano- and sustainable chemistry.

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