Hierarchical Double-Shelled CoP Nanocages for Efficient Visible-Light-Driven CO₂ Reduction

Abstract

Visible-light-driven photocatalytic CO₂ reduction is considered an appealing strategy to mitigate the energy crisis and environmental issues, whereas the reactivity is limited due to the difficulties in activation of inert CO₂ molecule and efficient transportation of photoinduced carriers. Herein, we report the design of novel Fe doped CoP hierarchical double-shelled nanocages (Fe-CoP HDSNC) via a MOF-templated approach for highly efficient visible-light-driven CO₂ reduction. The unique hierarchical double-shelled hollow architectures can greatly shorten the charge transfer distances and also expose abundant reactive sites. Moreover, Fe atoms doping is able to reduce the CO₂ activation energy barrier through stabilizing the *COOH intermediates and promote the CO desorption by destabilizing the CO* adduct. As expected, the Fe-CoP HDSNC achieves an unprecedented catalytic efficiency in visible-light-driven CO₂ reduction with an up to 3.25% apparent quantum yield and 90.3% CO selectivity, superior to most of the state-of-the-art photocatalysts under comparable conditions. More importantly, the Fe-CoP HDSNC is also highly effective under diluted CO₂ atmosphere, suggesting the practicability of the present photocatalytic system.