Microwave-assisted fabrication of 1D/2D CeO2/Bi2MoO6 heterojunction for efficient photocatalytic CO2 reduction to CH3OH

Photocatalytic CO 2 reduction to fuels via visible light is regarded as a highly promising sustainable technology to address resource depletion and environmental apprehensions. However, the elevation of photocatalytic performance is limited due to some drawbacks of isolated catalysts such as poor CO 2 adsorption performance, inadequate utilization of visible light, and rapid recombination of photo-generated carriers. Herein, a series of novel heterojunction catalysts, 1D/2D CeO 2 /Bi 2 MoO 6 (CBMO-X), were fabricated utilizing the microwave-assisted method for the photocatalytic reduction of CO 2 . The CH 3 OH yield of the optimized CBMO-10 composite material reached 4.31 μmol⋅g −1 ⋅h −1 with excellent stability and structural integrity. Through a series of characterizations, it was found that the introduced CeO 2 nanorods served as bifunctional sites for CO 2 adsorption and photoelectron accumulation, effectively promoting CO 2 conversion under visible light. In addition, CBMO-X exhibited faster photo-generated carriers migration rate due to the formation of the II-scheme heterojunction, which improved the photocatalytic performance obviously. Furthermore, the density functional theory (DFT) calculations and in situ XPS were used to investigate the carrier migration paths on the surface of composite materials. This work provided a novel strategy for the design of photocatalysts for efficient CO 2 conversion.