Day-night MOF- based TiO2/WO3 photocatalyst for CO2 reduction

Climate change caused by accumulative CO2 emission (due to the rapid development of human industry) has become an imminent threat to human beings as witnessed by the more and more frequent reports on sea-level rising, storm, and wildfire. The close-loop CO2 recycling, including CO2 capture, storage, and utilization has thus attracted enormous attention from researchers around the world. Among the various technologies, converting CO2 into chemical fuels and value-added feedstocks, photocatalytic CO2 reduction reactions (CO2RR) based on heterogeneous photocatalysts is particularly attractive due to its direct utilization of solar energy, great recyclability, and economic benefits. Until now, many photocatalysts for the CO2RR have been developed which are typically composed of a semiconductor like TiO2, SiO2, WO3, etc. However, the biggest limitation of all these common photocatalysts is that they can works only when irradiated, while environment undergoes deterioration also in absence of any source of irradiation, for instance at nights. To extend their capabilities to the full day-night period for CO2RR, for first time, we have focused on making their activity independent of photons, upgrading it not only under light irradiation, but also at dark.

Faculty Supervisor:

Daria Camilla Boffito

Student:

Partner:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Education

University:

Polytechnique Montréal

Program: