Photocatalytic
reduction of CO2 to valuable chemical
fuels is of broad interest, given its potential to activate stable
greenhouse CO2 using renewable energy input. We report
how to choose the right metal cocatalysts in combination with the
surface basicity of TiO2 to enhance their photocatalytic
efficiency for CO2 photoreduction. Uniform ligand-free
metal nanoparticles (NPs) of Ag, Cu, Au, Pd, and Pt, supported on
TiO2, are active for CO2 photoreduction using
water as an electron donor. The group XI metals show a high selectivity
to CO and Ag/TiO2 is most active to produce CO at a rate
of 5.2 μmol g–1 h–1. The
group X metals, e.g., Pd and Pt, mainly generate hydrocarbons including
methane and ethane, and Pd/TiO2 is slightly more active
in methane production at a rate of 2.4 μmol g–1 h–1. The activity of these photocatalysts can
be enhanced by varying the surface basicity of TiO2 with
primary amines. However, proton reduction selectivity is greatly enhanced
in the presence of amine except amine-modified Ag/TiO2,
which shows an activity enhancement by 2.4 times solely for CO2 photoreduction as compared to that without amines without
switching its selectivity to proton reduction. Using in situ infrared
spectroscopy and CO stripping voltammetry, we demonstrate that the
improvement of electron density and the low proton affinity of metal
cocatalysts are of key importance in CO2 photoreduction.
As a systematic study, our results provide a guideline on the right
choice of metals in combination of the surface functionality to tune
the photocatalytic efficiency of supported metal NPs on TiO2 for selective CO2 photoreduction.