Anchoring palladium nanoparticles on CsPbBr3 perovskite nanocrystals for enhanced photocatalytic CO2 reduction

Recently, all-inorganic cesium lead halide (CsPbX3 (X = Cl, Br, and I) perovskite nanocrystals (NCs) have been extensively investigated for photocatalytic carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction reaction (CO2RR). However, because the pristine CsPbX3 NCs suffer from severe radiative recombination, it is imperative to elaborately design heterostructures to separate electron-hole pairs for achieving efficient CO2RR. Herein, palladium (Pd) nanoparticles (NPs) are anchored on CsPbBr3 NCs by a photo-assisted approach for the first time. The as-prepared CsPbBr3@Pd NCs not only build Schottky junctions at the CsPbBr3/Pd interfaces that promote the carrier separation and suppress the radiative recombination, but also exhibit lower energy barriers for photocatalytic CO2RR than pristine CsPbBr3 NCs according to the density functional theory calculations. The electron consumption rate reaches a striking peak of 46.2 µmol g−1 h−1 by using CsPbBr3@Pd NCs as photocatalysts for CO2RR, which is 4.8-fold of the counterpart of pristine CsPbBr3 NCs. This work not only presents a photo-assisted strategy for anchoring Pd NPs on CsPbBr3 NCs, but also demonstrates the great potential of using CsPbBr3@Pd NCs for photocatalytic CO2RR.