Enhanced Adsorption and Dissociation of H2O Facilitates Photocatalytic CO2 Reduction on Defective BiSbO4

The dissociation of H2O molecules plays an important role in producing protons for promoting hydrogenation reduction of CO2. Therefore, developing excellent photocatalysts to promote the dissociation of H2O molecules and reveal the effect mechanism is the key research direction to enhance CO2 reduction efficiency. In this work, we synthesized BiSbO4 with oxygen vacancies (OVs) to investigate the photocatalytic mechanism of CO2 conversion and H2O dissociation. Experimental results indicate that the introduction of OVs into BiSbO4 can enhance the absorption capacity of light, narrowing band gaps and impeding the recombination of photogenerated carriers. Importantly, the existence of OVs in BiSbO4 can promote the adsorption and activation of H2O molecules via the stronger covalent interaction, which facilitates the dissociation of H2O molecules to generate more protons and lowers the energy barriers of •COOH to improve the efficiency of CO2 reduction. This study reinforces our understanding of the principle of photocatalytic CO2 reduction and the important role of H2O dissociation in photocatalytic CO2 conversion.