IMDEA Energy Institute
Published May 1, 2023 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Towards the improvement of methane production in CO2 photoreduction using Bi2WO6/TiO2 heterostructures

Creators

  • 1. Photoactivated Processes Unit, IMDEA Energy Institute, Parque Tecnol´ ogico de M´ ostoles, Avda. Ram´ on de la Sagra 3, 28935 M´ ostoles, Madrid, Spain
  • 2. PECIFIC IKC, College of Engineering, Swansea University, Swansea SA1 8EN, UK
  • 3. SPECIFIC IKC, College of Engineering, Swansea University, Swansea SA1 8EN, UK
  • 4. Thermochemical Processes Unit, IMDEA Energy Institute, Parque Tecnol´ ogico de M´ ostoles, Avda. Ramon ´ de la Sagra 3, 28935 M´ ostoles, Madrid, Spain

Description

Russelite bismuth tungstate (Bi2WO6) has been widely reported for the photocatalytic degradation and mineralization of a myriad of pollutants as well as organic compounds. These materials present perovskite-like structure with hierarchical morphologies, which confers excellent optoelectronic properties as potentials candidates for photocatalytic solar fuels production. Here, we propose the development of Bi2WO6/TiO2 heterojunctions for CO2 photoreduction, as a promising solution to produce fuels, alleviate global warming and tackle fossil fuel shortage. Our results show an improvement of the photocatalytic activity of the heterojunctions compared to the pristine semiconductors. Near Ambient Pressure X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (NAP-XPS) experiments reveals a preferential CO2 adsorption over TiO2. On the other hand, transient absorption spectroscopy measurements show that the charge transfer pathway in Bi2WO6/TiO2 hybrids leads to longer-lived photogenerated carriers in spatially separated redox active sites, which favor the reduction of CO2 into highly electron demanding fuels and chemicals, such as CH4 and C2H6

Notes

Financial support has been received from the European Research Council (ERC), through HYMAP project (grant agreement No. 648319), under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, as well as from the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 754382. L.C. acknowledges funding from the project ARMONIA (PID2020–119125RJ-I00) funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/ 501100011033. Financial support has also been received from AEIMINECO/FEDER (Nympha Project, PID2019–106315RB-I00), "Comunidad de Madrid" regional government, and the European Structural Funds (FotoArt-CM project, S2018/NMT-4367). Authors also acknowledge financial support from the grant PLEC2021–007906 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and the "European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR".

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