Cooperatively tailored surface frustrated Lewis pairs and N-doping on CeO2 for photocatalytic CO2 reduction to high-value hydrocarbon products

Photocatalytic conversion of CO2 into high valuable fuels has attracted great interest, especially for the multi-carbon products. We design and synthesize a cerium oxide (CeO2) photocatalyst with cooperatively tailored N-doping and surface frustrated Lewis pairs (FLPs), wherein the FLPs are constructed by Lewis acidic coordinatively unsaturated Ce3+ species and the adjacent Lewis basic Ce-OH groups. The synergistic effects of the FLPs and N-doping cooperatively promote the light absorption, CO2 bonding and activation, multiple proton-electron transfer processes and C-C coupling reactions, thereby improving the productivity and selectivity of photoreduction of CO2 to high-value hydrocarbons. The finely surface engineered CeO2 photocatalysts achieve 86.86% selectivity of C1 (CO, CH4) and C2 (C2H4 and C2H2) hydrocarbon products, and the selectivity for the C2 products reaches to 41.07%. It proves that the ceria catalyst is promising toward practical production of high-value multicarbon fuels using solar energy.