A Heterogeneous Carbon Nitride–Nickel Photocatalyst for Efficient Low‐Temperature CO2 Methanation

Abstract The Sabatier reaction, i.e., the hydrogenation of CO 2 to methane (CH 4 ) using hydrogen (H 2 ), constitutes a potentially scalable method to store energy in a product with a high energy density. However, up to today, this reaction has been mainly thermally driven and conducted at high temperatures (typically 400–600 °C). Using light as a renewable energy source will allow for a more sustainable process by lowering the reaction temperature. Here, it is demonstrated that Ni nanoparticles support on graphitic carbon nitride (g‐CN) are a highly efficient and stable photocatalyst for the gas‐phase CO 2 methanation at low temperature (150 °C). Detailed mechanistic studies reveal a very low activation energy for the reaction and high activity under visible light, leading to a remarkable and continuous CH 4 production of 28 µmol g −1 h −1 of CH 4 for 24 h.