The
difficulty of adsorption and activation of CO2 at
the catalytic site and rapid recombination of photogenerated charge
carriers severely restrict the CO2 conversion efficiency.
Here, we fabricate a novel alkaline Co(OH)2-decorated ultrathin
2D titanic acid nanosheet (H2Ti6O13) catalyst, which rationally couples the structural and functional
merits of ultrathin 2D supports with catalytically active Co species.
Alkaline Co(OH)2 beneficially binds and activates CO2 molecules, while monolayer H2Ti6O13 acts as an electron relay that bridges a photosensitizer
with Co(OH)2 catalytic sites. As such, photoexcited charges
can be efficiently channeled from light absorbers to activated CO2 molecules through the ultrathin hybrid Co(OH)2/H2Ti6O13 composite, thereby producing
syngas (CO/H2 mixture) from photoreduction of CO2. High evolution rates of 56.5 μmol h–1 for
CO and 59.3 μmol h–1 for H2 are
achieved over optimal Co(OH)2/H2Ti6O13 by visible light illumination. In addition, the CO/H2 ratio can be facilely tuned from 1:1 to 1:2.4 by changing
the Co(OH)2 content, thus presenting a feasible approach
to controllably synthesize different H2/CO mixtures for
target applications.
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