Authors
Qingqing Guan, Yiduo Wang, Chung-Li Dong, Ta Thi Thuy Nga, Ting Peng, Linpeng Xu, Yi Shen, Guofu Wang, Yiqing Wang, Wei Liu, Bo Kou, Shaohua Shen
Published in
Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English). Nov 05, 2026. Epub Nov 05, 2026.
Abstract
Photocatalytic CO2 reduction to hydrocarbon fuels represents a sustainable route toward carbon neutrality, yet selective and efficient C2 production remains a formidable challenging due to the high thermodynamic barrier and sluggish C-C coupling kinetics. In this study, we report a hydroxyl (-OH)-rich TiO2 photocatalyst decorated with Cu single atoms (SAs) (Cu/HTO) that addresses this challenge through synergistic active site-surface group engineering. The electronic interplay between surface -OH groups and Cu SAs promotes charge separation and strengthens CO2 chemisorption/activation at Cu sites, facilitating *CO intermediates formation and subsequent protonation for selective C2H5OH and CO prodution. Under sacrificial agent free conditions, Cu/HTO delivers CO at 90.1 µmol g-1 h-1 with 88.3% yield-based selectivity in a gas-solid (GS) system. Notably, in a gas-liquid-solid (GLS) system with water supplying abundant protons, Cu/HTO efficiently yields C2H5OH at 361.5 µmol g-1 h-1 with 99.4% yield-based selectivity, which is related to Cu2+ sites stabilized *CO intermediates thermodynamically favoring C-C coupling and the surface -OH groups mediated proton transfer kinetically facilitating multistep protonation. This work not only establishes a high-performance and low-cost photocatalyst for CO2-to-C2 conversion but also provides a rational design paradigm for engineering single-atom-surface-group synergy in solar fuel synthesis.
PMID:
42989735
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 06 Nov 2026.
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