Full solar spectrum driven plasmonic-assisted efficient photocatalytic CO2 reduction to ethanol

Photocatalytic carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) reduction to valuable chemicals (ethanol) is an ideal way to realize artificial photosynthesis. It is still extremely difficult to achieve the challenge for photocatalytic CO 2 reduction to multi-electronic products (C 2 H 5 OH). Here, we design the SrTiO 3 (La Cr)/Cu @ Ni/TiN (STO/Cu @ Ni/TiN) to realize the high efficiency of photocatalytic CO 2 reduction conversion into ethanol in the absence of sacrificial reagents. Furthermore, we use non-noble metallic materials such as Cu, Ni, and TiN to enhance the plasmonic effect for efficiently capturing solar full-spectrum energy instead of noble metals. Meanwhile, the TPD results show that Cu@Ni nanoparticles can enhance the chemical adsorption of CO 2 molecules. STO/Cu @ Ni/TiN exhibit an optimal ethanol evolution rate of 21.3 μmol/(h·g cat. ) and the ethanol selectivity of 79%, which is the highest value for photocatalytic CO 2 reduction to ethanol, among the best values of our knowledge. Furthermore, the pathway of ethanol is confirmed by density functional theory (DFT) calculations and the 13 C isotope experiment.