Dual activation and C-C coupling on single atom catalyst for CO₂ photoreduction

DOI

An excellent single-atomic photocatalyst, Ti@C₄N₃, is theoretically found to effectively convert CO₂ to C₂H₆ by density functional theory (DFT) calculations and non-adiabatic molecular dynamics (NAMD) simulations. The Ti@C₄N₃ photocatalyst has remarkable stability both thermally, chemically, and mechanically. Electronically, it has strong absorption properties, suitable band positions, and a long photogenerated electron lifetime, allowing photogenerated electrons to migrate to the surface. Notably, the high-valence active site effectively activates two CO₂ through dual activation: Under light irradiation, the weakly adsorbed CO₂ undergoes photo-induced activation by the photoelectron of conduction band minimum (CBM); without light, the high Lewis acidity of the Ti site induces CO₂ activation through back-donating π-bond. Contrast simulation results uncovered that dual activation of CO₂ is attributed to the thermal and photonic synergy. Furthermore, two activated CO₂ species under light easily couple to form oxalate with the barrier of 0.19 eV, and further reduced to C₂H₆ with a low activation energy of 1.09 eV.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.24435/materialscloud:hd-qb
Related Identifier https://archive.materialscloud.org/communities/mcarchive
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.24435/materialscloud:h7-4r
Metadata Access https://archive.materialscloud.org/oai2d?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&identifier=oai:materialscloud.org:1983
Provenance
Creator Sun, Fu-li; Lin, Cun-biao; Zhang, Wei; Chen, Qing; Chen, Wen-xian; Li, Xiao-nian; Zhuang, Gui-lin
Publisher Materials Cloud
Contributor Zhuang, Gui-lin
Publication Year 2023
Rights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess; Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode; License addendum
OpenAccess true
Contact archive(at)materialscloud.org
Representation
Language English
Resource Type info:eu-repo/semantics/other
Format application/zip; text/markdown; text/plain
Discipline Materials Science and Engineering