Porous Boron Oxynitride for Combined CO2 Capture and Photoreduction

Ravi Shankar^a, Michael Sachs^b, Laia Francàs^b, Daphné Lubert-Perquel^c, Gwilherm Kerherve^d, Anna Regoutz^d, Camille Petit^a

^aBarrer Centre, Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London United Kingdom, South Kensington Campus, Exhibition Road, London, United Kingdom

^bDepartment of Chemistry, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus London, London, United Kingdom

^cLondon Centre for Nanotechnology and Department of Materials, Imperial College London, United Kingdom, South Kensington Campus, Prince’s Consort Road, London, United Kingdom

^dDepartment of Materials, Imperial College London, United Kingdom, Prince’s Consort Road, South Kensington Campus, London, United Kingdom

Materials for Sustainable Development Conference (MATSUS)
Proceedings of nanoGe Fall Meeting19 (NFM19)

#SolCat19. (Photo)electrocatalysis for sustainable carbon utilization: mechanisms, methods, and reactor development

Berlin, Germany, 2019 November 3rd - 8th

Organizer: Matthew Mayer

Oral, Ravi Shankar, presentation 154
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.nfm.2019.154
Publication date: 18th July 2019

Designing robust, metal-free photocatalysts that can efficiently facilitate the conversion of sunlight into chemical energy remains an ongoing challenge in the field of nanomaterials. Porous, amorphous materials are typically not employed for photocatalytic purposes as the abundance of defects can lead to low charge mobility and favour bulk electron-hole recombination. However, a disordered nature in the material can lead to porosity, which in turn promotes both interfacial catalyst-reactant interactions and fast charge transfer to the reactants.

Here, we demonstrate that moving from hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), a well-known crystalline insulator, to porous boron oxynitride (BNO), we create a semiconductor, which is able to photoreduce CO₂ in a gas/solid phase, under both UV-vis and pure visible light, in ambient conditions, without the need for cocatalysts. The materials were synthesized using a bottom-up approach and characterized using a range of analytical techniques, such as X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, FT-IR spectroscopy, N₂ sorption, UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, electron paramagnetic resonance analysis, and valence band X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The materials were then tested for CO₂ reduction and their performances were mapped against the chemical, structural and optical properties of the material.

The material is able to selectively evolve CO and maintains its photocatalytic stability over several catalytic cycles. The performance of this material, which is yet to be optimized, is on par with that of TiO₂, the benchmark in the field. Through this study, we provide insight into the role of chemical and structural features of porous BN on CO₂ photoreduction. Owing to the chemical and structural tunability of porous BN, these findings highlight the potential of porous BN-based structures for heterogeneous photocatalysis and solar fuels synthesis. These findings could have key implications in designing and tailoring a new class of robust, metal-free photocatalysts to facilitate challenging photochemical reactions.

References:

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