Selective light absorber-assisted single nickel atom catalysts for ambient sunlight-driven CO<sub>2</sub> methanation.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 31142744.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-10304-y and PMC identifier 6541650.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Ambient sunlight-driven CO<sub>2</sub> methanation cannot be realized due to the temperature being less than 80 °C upon irradiation with dispersed solar energy. In this work, a selective light absorber was used to construct a photothermal system to generate a high temperature (up to 288 °C) under weak solar irradiation (1 kW m<sup>-2</sup>), and this temperature is three times higher than that in traditional photothermal catalysis systems. Moreover, ultrathin amorphous Y<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> nanosheets with confined single nickel atoms (SA Ni/Y<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>) were synthesized, and they exhibited superior CO<sub>2</sub> methanation activity. As a result, 80% CO<sub>2</sub> conversion efficiency and a CH<sub>4</sub> production rate of 7.5 L m<sup>-2</sup> h<sup>-1</sup> were achieved through SA Ni/Y<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> under solar irradiation (from 0.52 to 0.7 kW m<sup>-2</sup>) when assisted by a selective light absorber, demonstrating that this system can serve as a platform for directly harnessing dispersed solar energy to convert CO<sub>2</sub> to valuable chemicals.