Reticulated porous CeO2 ceramics with interconnected micropores templated from Pickering emulsions for solar thermochemical CO2 splitting

Porous CeO2 materials have attracted great attention in solar thermochemical CO2 splitting due to their superiorities on oxygen ion mobility and fuel production kinetics. Porous CeO2 ceramics with interconnected pores at micron scale have been firstly prepared via Pickering emulsion. Derived from emulsion template, the conversion from closed pore structure to open pore structure can be realized by regulating solid content, water-oil ratio and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) content due to its competitive adsorption at water/oil interface of Pickering emulsions with modified CeO2 particles. The obtained porous CeO2 ceramics present pores with average pore size of 5.31-65.5 μm, bulk density of 0.66-1.03 g/cm3, high porosity of 81.9-90.8%, and compressive strength of 1.91-6.60 MPa. Their CO production for two thermal cycles is 3.226 g/ml and 3.014 g/ml respectively, showing an advantage over counterparts from conventional methods, which are expected to be applied for solar thermochemical CO production.