Enriching surface-ordered defects on WO<sub>3</sub> for photocatalytic CO<sub>2</sub>-to-CH<sub>4</sub> conversion by water.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 38662548.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1073/pnas.2319751121 and PMC identifier 11066983.
- Licence recorded as CC BY-NC-ND.
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Abstract
Defect engineering has been widely applied in semiconductors to improve photocatalytic properties by altering the surface structures. This study is about the transformation of inactive WO<sub>3</sub> nanosheets to a highly effective CO<sub>2</sub>-to-CH<sub>4</sub> conversion photocatalyst by introducing surface-ordered defects in abundance. The nonstoichiometric WO<sub>3-<i>x</i></sub> samples were examined by using aberration-corrected electron microscopy. Results unveil abundant surface-ordered terminations derived from the periodic {013} stacking faults with a defect density of 20.2%. The {002} surface-ordered line defects are the active sites for fixation CO<sub>2</sub>, transforming the inactive WO<sub>3</sub> nanosheets into a highly active catalyst (CH<sub>4</sub>: O<sub>2</sub> = 8.2: 16.7 μmol h<sup>-1</sup>). We believe that the formation of the W-O-C-W-O species is a critical step in the catalytic pathways. This work provides an atomic-level comprehension of the structural defects of catalysts for activating small molecules.