MXene Ti3C2 decorated g-C3N4/ZnO photocatalysts with improved photocatalytic performance for CO2 reduction

Photocatalytic reduction of CO2 is considered as a kind of promising technologies for solving the greenhouse effect. Herein, a novel hybrid structure of g-C3N4/ZnO/Ti3C2 photocatalysts was designed and fabricated to investigate their abilities for CO2 reduction. As demonstration, heterojunction of g-C3N4/ZnO can improve photogenerated carriers’ separation, the addition of Ti3C2 fragments can further facilitate the photocatalytic performance from CO2 to CO. Hence, g-C3N4/ZnO/Ti3C2 has efficiently increased CO production by 8 and 12 times than pristine g-C3N4 and ZnO, respectively. Which is ascribed to the photogenerated charge migration promoted by metallic Ti3C2. This work provides a guideline for designing efficient hybrid catalysts on other applications in the renewable energy fields

The Regulation of O2 Spin State and Direct Oxidation of CO at Room Temperature Using Triboelectric Plasma by Harvesting Mechanical Energy

Oxidation reactions play a critical role in processes involving energy utilization, chemical conversion, and pollutant elimination. However, due to its spin-forbidden nature, the reaction of molecular dioxygen (O2) with a substrate is difficult under mild conditions. Herein, we describe a system that activates O2 via the direct modulation of its spin state by mechanical energy-induced triboelectric corona plasma, enabling the CO oxidation reaction under normal temperature and pressure. Under optimized reaction conditions, the activity was 7.2 μmol h−1, and the energy consumption per mole CO was 4.2 MJ. The results of kinetic isotope effect, colorimetry, and density functional theory calculation studies demonstrated that electrons generated in the triboelectric plasma were directly injected into the antibonding orbital of O2 to form highly reactive negative ions O2−, which effectively promoted the rate-limiting step of O2 dissociation. The barrier of the reaction of O2− ions and CO molecular was 3.4 eV lower than that of O2 and CO molecular. This work provides an effective strategy for using renewable and green mechanical energy to realize spin-forbidden reactions of small molecules