High-Temperature Semiconductor CuO/SiC-Based Catalyst for Artificial Photosynthesis

Graphical A strategy to use high-temperature semiconductor photocatalyst dealing with artificial photosynthesis for CO 2 photothermal reduction with concentrated sunlight was proposed. A CuO/SiC catalyst was accordingly designed and showed extremely high CO 2 photoreduction activity with H 2 O at high temperature. The CH 4 yield reached 2041 μmol ⋅ g −1 at 350 °C with maximum solar energy conversion efficiency of 2.3 %. Artificial photosynthesis can convert CO 2 and H 2 O into hydrocarbons via solar energy. However, the extremely low process efficiency is a major obstacle to this application. The photocatalyst is considered to be the key factor to raise the overall solar energy conversion efficiency. Much research focused on co-catalysts, but less attention has been paid on the high-temperature semiconductor. Herein, a strategy is proposed involving high-temperature semiconductor to design target photocatalyst dealing with the artificial photosynthesis at high temperature. Based upon this strategy, a CuO/SiC catalyst with single atom characteristic was designed, prepared and the activity of CO 2 photoreduction with H 2 O was tested in a high temperature environment. Above 150 °C, the catalyst activity was boosted and unprecedented performance values were attained. Under the irradiation condition delivered by a 1000 W Xe light and at 350 °C, the obtained yields of CH 4 , C 2 H 4 , and C 2 H 6 were 2041.4 μmol ⋅ g −1 , 15.2 μmol ⋅ g −1 , and 63.6 μmol ⋅ g −1 , respectively. The overall CO 2 conversion reached 24.6 % and the maximum solar energy conversion efficiency was 2.3 % without any sacrificed agents. This strategy will be helpful to overcome the current limitations for the industrialization of artificial photosynthesis and accelerate the related research on photothermal catalysis.