Rich oxygen vacancies in confined heterostructured TiO2@In2S3 hybrid for boosting solar-driven CO2 reduction

Solar energy driving CO 2 reduction is a potential strategy that not only mitigates the greenhouse effect caused by high CO 2 level in atmosphere, but also yields carbon chemicals/fuels at the same time. Herein, a facile way to design the heterogeneous TiO 2 @In 2 S 3 hollow structures possessing robust light harvesting in both ultraviolet and visible regions is proposed and exhibits a higher generation rate of 25.35 and 1.24 μmol·g −1 ·h −1 for photocatalytic CO 2 reduction to CO and CH 4 , respectively. The excellent photocatalytic catalytic performance comes from i) the confined heterostructured TiO 2 @In 2 S 3 possesses a suitable band structure and a broadband-light absorbing capacity for CO 2 photoreduction, ii) the rich interfaces between nanosized TiO 2 and In 2 S 3 on the shell can significantly reduce the diffusion length of carriers and enhance the utilization efficiency of photogenerated electron-hole pairs, and iii) enriched surface oxygen vacancies can provide more active sites for CO 2 adsorption.