Fabrication of porous octahedron-flowerlike microsphere NH2-UiO-66/CdIn2S4 heterojunction photocatalyst for enhanced photocatalytic CO2 reduction

Solar-driven carbon dioxide (CO2) photoreduction has been considered as an environmentally friendly and promising strategy to utilize solar energy and mitigate the impact of greenhouse effect. Designing novel cost-effective photocatalytic system with high CO2 molecules adsorption activity is an efficient avenue to enhance CO2 photoreduction performance. Herein, a series of NH2-UiO-66/CdIn2S4 (NU66/CIS) photocatalysts with different NU66 contents were constructed via facile in-situ hydrothermal route and displayed graceful morphology. According to a series of characterization results, porous octahedron NU66 were deeply anchored on flowerlike 3D-microspheres CIS, and a part of the small-sized CIS were evenly dispersed on the surface of NU66. Without any sacrificial agent, the optimized 8% NU66/CIS heterojunctions still exhibited the satisfactory photocatalytic efficiency for CO2 conversion, whose CO and CH4 yields reached up to 11.24 μ mol g−1 h−1 and 2.92 μ mol g−1 h−1, respectively, which were 2.87 and 3.31 folds higher than that of pristine CIS. The remarkably boosted activity of NU66/CIS was originated from the high specific surface area and the formation of heterostructure between the well-dispersed NU66 and CIS, which could promote the electron transfer during CO2 photocatalytic reduction.