Boosted Solar Thermochemical Low‐Temperature CO₂ Splitting On Pt/CeO₂ by Interface Catalysis

Abstract

Solar thermochemical CO2 splitting using metal oxides is considered as a promising approach to produce solar fuels since it is capable to tap abundant sunlight directly and store solar energy in the renewable fuel. It remains a grand challenge to achieve highly efficient CO2 splitting at low temperature (<800 oC) due to insufficient activation of metal oxides for CO2.Herein, the introduction of a small amount of Pt was found to be able to greatly increase the performance of CO2 splitting with the highest peak CO production rate of about 65 mL min‐1 g‐1, CO productivity of about 53 mL g‐1, nearly 100% CO2 conversion and long‐term stability for 0.5Pt/CeO2 which exceeded most of the state‐of‐the‐art transition metals‐based oxides even at lower temperature (700 oC). This could be attributed to the addition of Pt leading to the formation of an interface (Pt0‐Ov‐Ce3+) after CH4 reduction, which improved CO2 activation and dissociation due to beneficial breakage of C=O bond by the cooperation of Pt0 and oxygen vacancies in the interface.