《Adv. Mater.》: Infrared Photothermal Catalytic Reduction of Atmospheric CO₂ into CO with 100% Selectivity via Dual-plasmon Resonance Conductor

Mengqian Li,⁺ Zequn Han,⁺ Jie Kong,⁺ Qinyuan Hu, Wenxiu Liu, Jiaqi Xu, Wensheng Yan, Jun Hu, Junfa Zhu, Yang Pan, Meng Zhou,* Qingxia Chen* and Xingchen Jiao*

Today, the fabrication of carbon monoxide (CO) in industry customarily necessitates elevated temperature and pressure. Concurrently, the harnessing of infrared (IR) light, which constitutes nearly 50% of solar energy, has predominantly remained unexploited due to a pronounced contradiction between the utilization of IR light and CO₂ photoreduction. To break the above limitation, we design a dual-plasmon resonance conductor with metallic nature, which first realize the synthesis of CO with 100% selectivity from infrared photothermal catalytic reduction of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂). Taking the Au particles loaded Cu₇Te₄ nanowires as an example, the surface dual-plasmon resonance coupling effect can optimize the three critical processes of CO₂ photoreduction, in which we first illustrated the dual-plasmon resonance effect lowered the thermodynamic reaction energy barrier, facilitating the selective generation of CO products. Consequently, the Au-Cu₇Te₄ nanowires manifest a CO evolution rate of approximately 2.7 μmol g⁻¹ h⁻¹ with 100% selectivity for atmospheric CO₂ reduction driven by IR light, several times higher than that of the Cu₇Te₄ nanowires.

Figure 1. Schematic illustration the designed environmentally friendly CO synthesis route form infrared-light-driven reduction of atmospheric CO₂ over a dual-plasmonic photocatalyst, in which the dual-plasmonic effect helps to improve infrared region absorption and promote carrier space separation, but also reduce CO₂ reaction energy barrier.