Bismuth-Induced Integration of Solar Energy Conversion with Synergistic Low-Temperature Catalysis in Ce_1–<i>x</i>Bi_<i>x</i>O_2−δ Nanorods

Abstract

For conventional photocatalysis, the energy threshold rather than merely the spectral response is always restricted that the infrared part (48% of solar energy) has never been efficiently utilized, undesirably elevating the temperature and damaging the photon-to-electron conversion. It remains challenging to conquer the IR-related contradiction and integrate the infrared energy into the solar energy conversion. Herein, we logically designed a Bi-induced synergistic photo/thermocatalyst (fluorite Ce1–xBixO2−δ nanorods), where the coupled ionic conductivity accompanying highly reductive Bi and concomitant oxygen vacancies helped bring about integration of photocatalysis with synergistic low temperature (20–80 °C, IR-driven) catalysis, promising for the effective utilization of infrared energy. More generally, through our results a feasible methodology is verified in detail that integration of semiconductor photocatalysis with solid state ionics may help design brand new catalysts, shedding light on the practical solar energy conversion.