Highly selective photothermal conversion of CO2 to ethylene using hierarchical boxwood ball-like Weyl semimetal WTe2 catalysts

WTe 2 is developed for efficient photothermal CO 2 conversion to C 2 H 4 for the first time. DFT calculations and in situ FTIR spectroscopy reveal that both W and Te as active sites promote C–C coupling to form C 2 H 4 by suitable W–Te atomic distance.