Highly Active Photoreduction of Atmospheric-Concentration CO2 into CH3COOH over Palladium Particles on Nb2O5 Nanosheets

The endeavor to drive CO2 photoreduction towards the synthesis of C-2 products is largely thwarted by the colossal energy hurdle inherent in C-C coupling. Herein, we load active metal particles on metal oxide nanosheets to build the dual metal pair sites for steering C-C coupling to form C-2 products. Taking Pd particles anchored on the Nb2O5 nanosheets as an example, the high-angle annular dark-field image and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy demonstrate the presence of Pd-Nb metal pair sites on the Pd-Nb2O5 nanosheets. Density functional theory calculations reveal these sites exhibit a low reaction energy barrier of only 1.02 eV for C-C coupling, implying that the introduction of Pd particles effectively tailors the reaction step to form C-2 products. Therefore, the Pd-Nb2O5 nanosheets achieve a CH3COOH evolution rate of 13.5 mu mol g(-1) h(-1) in photoreduction of atmospheric-concentration CO2, outshining all other single photocatalysts reported to date under analogous conditions.