Electron-coupled enhanced interfacial interaction of Ce-MOF/Bi2MoO6 heterostructure for boosted photoreduction CO2

To achieve the task of “Carbon neutrality” in China, the photoreduction of CO2 was applied over the solid-phase synthesized Ce-MOF/Bi2MoO6 heterostructure. The inexhaustible driven force of sunlight was adopted and the value-added chemicals of methane, methanol and formic acid were obtained during photoreduction. The firstly successful construction of Ce-MOF/Bi2MoO6 heterostructure was generated by their intense contact via the electron-coupled structure, which could take full advantage of the high surface area of Ce-MOF and the efficient electrons transfer of Bi2MoO6. The segregation and transport of photoexcited carriers were heightened by the enhanced interfacial interaction. Moreover, the generation of HCOOH appeared only over the composites, which was caused by the inhibition of the fast interaction between the photoexcited electrons and CO2-reduced intermediates. As a result, the CO2 photoreduction performance of electrons-induced heterostructured of Ce-MOF/Bi2MoO6 composites exhibited higher CH4, CH3OH and HCOOH yield amount than the neat Ce-MOF and BMO. The optimized photocatalyst reached up to 113.87 μmol·h−1·g−1 of CH4, 40.59 μmol·h−1·g−1 of CH3OH and 73.48 μmol·h−1·g−1 of HCOOH. The mechanism of CO2 photoreduction process was gained by ESR and in-situ DRIFTS techniques.