Cooperatively tailored surface frustrated Lewis pairs and N-doping on CeO2 for photocatalytic CO2 reduction to high-value hydrocarbon products

Photocatalytic conversion of CO 2 into high valuable fuels has attracted great interest, especially for the multi-carbon products. We design and synthesize a cerium oxide (CeO 2 ) photocatalyst with cooperatively tailored N-doping and surface frustrated Lewis pairs (FLPs), wherein the FLPs are constructed by Lewis acidic coordinatively unsaturated Ce 3+ species and the adjacent Lewis basic Ce-OH groups. The synergistic effects of the FLPs and N-doping cooperatively promote the light absorption, CO 2 bonding and activation, multiple proton-electron transfer processes and C-C coupling reactions, thereby improving the productivity and selectivity of photoreduction of CO 2 to high-value hydrocarbons. The finely surface engineered CeO 2 photocatalysts achieve 86.86% selectivity of C 1 (CO, CH 4 ) and C 2 (C 2 H 4 and C 2 H 2 ) hydrocarbon products, and the selectivity for the C 2 products reaches to 41.07%. It proves that the ceria catalyst is promising toward practical production of high-value multicarbon fuels using solar energy.