Boosted Solar Thermochemical Low-temperature CO2 Splitting On Pt/CeO2 By Interface Catalysis.

Abstract

Solar thermochemical CO2 splitting using metal oxides is considered as a promising approach to produce solar fuels since it is capable to tap abundant sunlight directly and store solar energy in the renewable fuel. It remains a grand challenge to achieve highly efficient CO2 splitting at low temperature (<800 oC) due to insufficient activation of metal oxides for CO2.Herein, the introduction of a small amount of Pt was found to be able to greatly increase the performance of CO2 splitting with the highest peak CO production rate of about 65 mL min-1 g-1, CO productivity of about 53 mL g-1, nearly 100% CO2 conversion and long-term stability for 0.5Pt/CeO2 which exceeded most of the state-of-the-art transition metals-based oxides even at lower temperature (700 oC). This could be attributed to the addition of Pt leading to the formation of an interface (Pt0-Ov-Ce3+) after CH4 reduction, which improved CO2 activation and dissociation due to beneficial breakage of C=O bond by the cooperation of Pt0 and oxygen vacancies in the interface.