Conversion of water and carbon dioxide into methanol with solar energy on Au/Co nanostructured surfaces

• Published in: Materials research express Vol. 7; no. 3; pp. 35014 - 35023
• Main Authors: Zhu, Qinghua, Wang, Cong, Ren, Haizhou, Zeng, Ming, Kan, Zhe, Wang, Zibo, Shen, Mengyan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol IOP Publishing 01.03.2020
• Subjects: artificial photosynthesis; Carbon dioxide; Carbon monoxide; Chemical energy; Cobalt; Energy harvesting; Gold; Gold chloride; Methanol; Microparticles; Morphology; nanoparticle; Nanoparticles; Nanostructure; Photocatalysts; Photosynthesis; Solar energy; Solar energy conversion
• ISSN: 2053-1591; 2053-1591
• DOI: 10.1088/2053-1591/ab7d0e

Conversion of carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O) to methanol (CH3OH) is achieved through an artificial photosynthesis procedure utilizing cobalt (Co) micro-particle based photocatalyst and solar energy in a simple, closed reactor. The photocatalyst is fabricated by exposing the surfaces of cobalt microparticles to femtosecond laser irradiation in a gold chloride (AuCl) solution. The morphology and composite of the photocatalyst surfaces were observed and detected to be a layer of cobalt dioxide (CoO) nano-flakes on which some gold (Au) nanoparticles were deposited. The Au nanoparticles harvest the Sunlight energy through a plasmonic effect. The energy absorbed by Au nanoparticles creates electrons and holes which excite the H2O and CO2 molecules adsorbed on CoO nanostructure surfaces to form excited hydrogen (H2)* and excited carbon monoxide (CO)* on the CoO surface. The excited molecules combine to form CH3OH on the CoO surface. The Au/CoO/Co nanostructured surfaces are useful for developing a low-cost method to convert solar energy to chemical energy in the form of methanol.