Assisting Bi2fe4o9 Nanosheets with Ceo2@Panacss Macro-Spheres as Bifunctional Supporter for Enhanced Photocatalytic Co2 Reduction

Abstract

It is rather essential to design and construct high-performance hybrid materials for efficient solar-driven CO2 reduction. Herein, high activity CeO2 is encapsulated into polyacrylonitrile-based carbon spheres (PANACSs) as a bifunctional CeO2@PANACSs cocatalyst to modify Bi2Fe4O9 nanosheets for enhanced photocatalytic CO2 reduction. CeO2 is embeded in PANACSs via a suspension polymerization and carbonization method, and CeO2@PANACSs cocatalyst is decorated with Bi2Fe4O9 to obtain ternary Bi2Fe4O9/CeO2@PANACSs composites. Chemical and photoelectric characterization confirms that the ternary hybrid photocatalyst has good CO2 reduction performance. The effective synergistic effects between Bi2Fe4O9 and CeO2@PANACSs realize that the CO yield of ternary hybrid photocatalyst can reach as high as 256.1 μmol·g-1 for 10 h, approximately 19.55 times, 1.45 times and 1.62 times higher than that of pristine PANACSs, Bi2Fe4O9 and CeO2, respectively. The bifunctional supporter of CeO2@PANACSs increases the surface area of the ternary material, forms abundant reaction sites and provides efficient charge transfer channels, which is conducive to efficient CO2 reduction by the ternary hybrid photocatalyst. Finally, the possible mechanism is proposed to depict the photocatalytic CO2 reduction over the ternary photocatalyst. Our finding provides a noteworthy promising strategy to construct bifunctional composite photocatalysts for achieving the high-efficient CO2 adsorption and photoreduction to CO.

Keywords: activated carbon spheres, nitrogen species, CeO2, Bi2Fe4O9, CO2 photoreduction