Abstract:

The photocatalytic reduction of CO₂ has attracted considerable attention owing to the dual suppression of environmental pollution and energy shortage. The technology uses solar energy to convert carbon dioxide into hydrocarbon fuel, which is of great significance for achieving the carbon cycle. The development of low-cost photocatalytic materials is critical to achieving efficient solar energy to fuels conversion. One of the most commonly employed photocatalysts is TiO₂. However, it suffers from broad band gap as well as the recombination of photo-excited holes and electron. Hence, in this work, we report the photochemical reduction of CO₂ using rod-like PCN-222(Cu)/TiO₂ composites as photocatalyst through a simple hydrothermal method, in which TiO₂ nanoparticles are anchored at the interface of the SiC rod PCN-222(Cu). Multiple characterization techniques were used to analyze the structure, morphology, and properties of the PCN-222(Cu)/TiO₂ composite. A series of characterizations including X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, photo-electrochemical, and photoluminescence (PL) confirm the successful preparation of PCN-222(Cu)/TiO₂ composites. SEM reveals that the TiO₂ nanoparticles are uniformly distributed on the surface of the rod-shaped PCN-222(Cu)/TiO₂. XRD results show that PCN-222(Cu) and PCN-222(Cu)/TiO₂ composite photocatalysts with good crystal structure were successfully synthesized. According to the DRS results, the prepared PCN-222(Cu)/TiO₂ composite samples exhibit characteristic absorption peaks of metalloporphyrins in the visible region. PL spectroscopy, transient photocurrent response, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy further confirm that the rod-like PCN-222(Cu)/TiO₂ samples have high electron-hole pair separation efficiency. By controlling the mass ratio of PCN-222(Cu) and TiO₂, the photocatalytic CO₂ reduction performance test shows that the 10% PCN-222(Cu)/TiO₂ composite achieves optimal catalytic performance, yielding 13.24 μmol·g⁻¹·h⁻¹ CO and 1.73 μmol·g⁻¹·h⁻¹ CH₄, respectively. All the rod-like PCN-222(Cu)/TiO₂ composites exhibit better photocatalytic CO₂ activity than that of TiO₂ nanoparticles or PCN-222(Cu) under the illumination of xenon lamps, which is attributed to charge transport and electron-hole separation capabilities. After three test cycles, the catalytic activity of PCN-222(Cu)/TiO₂ photocatalyst was virtually unchanged. The reduction yield of the catalyst increased for 8 h under continuous illumination, indicating that PCN-222(Cu)/TiO₂ composites have acceptable stability. The estimation of the band gap curve and the Mote-Schottky curve test show that the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital position of PCN-222(Cu) is more negative than the TiO₂ of the conduction band; hence, a possible photocatalytic reaction mechanism of the PCN-222(Cu)/TiO₂ composite is proposed. This study provides a new strategy for the integration of metal-organic frameworks and oxide semiconductors to construct efficient photocatalytic systems.

Key words: Composite, Metal-organic frameworks, PCN-222(Cu), Photocatalytic CO₂ reduction, TiO₂