Conversion of solar energy into chemical energy in the form of solar fuels is considered as one of the most perspective strategies to solve the energy and environmental problems. A meaningful reaction for solar-to-chemical energy conversion is photocatalytic reduction of CO2 to chemical fuels. The search for highly active photocatalysts for CO2 reduction under solar light irradiation has been a challenging yet very important research topic. Up to now, a great variety of impressive materials have been explored and employed as photocatalysts for CO2 reduction, but most of them still suffer from a quite low efficiency, far from the requirements of practical application. Two-dimensional (2D) ultrathin nanosheets have attracted explosive attention due to a wealth of unprecedented functionalities, which benefit from their extremely high surface percentage. Ultrathin nanosheets with 2D configurations also enable intimate and large area contact with the reactants, which insure faster interfacial charge transfer to improve the catalytic reactions. Significantly, the more exposed interior atoms inevitably induce the formation of defects with structure disorder on their surface, which usually increases the density of states near the Fermi level to serve as highly active sites for catalytic reactions. From this prospect, we have developed transition metal dichalcogenides nanosheets, such as ultrathin Co0.85Se nanosheets with atomic thickness, oxygen-doped ZnIn2S4 nanosheets，which can effectively catalyze CO2 reduction under visible light with 2.5-fold enhancement of photocatalytic efficiency compared with their bulk samples. Our work demonstrates that the synthesis of 2D ultrathin nanosheets can be considered as an efficient strategy to construct highly efficient CO2 reduction catalysts for their future applications.

2D ultrathin nanosheets for photocatalytic CO2 reduction

2019 Spring National Meeting

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