Disordered (black) titania is renowned for its enhanced photocatalytic properties relative to its crystalline (white) counterpart. Despite great efforts to understand the origin of its reactivity (focusing, for example, on its electronic bandgap, photon absorption, and charge-carrier separation kinetics, pivotal aspects of its surface chemistry remain essentially unknown to this day, due largely to the challenges of defining the surface structure and understanding the physicochemical properties of the amorphous state.
To address this problem, recently, Prof. Xiaohong Zhang from the Institute of Functional Nano and Soft Materials of Soochow University, Prof. Geoffrey A. Ozin from University of Toronto, and Prof. Kulbir Kaur Ghuman from Institut national de la recherche scientifique have jointly carried out a series of studies.Intentionally engineered SFLPs in the amorphous shell of c-TiO2@a-TiO2-x(OH)y boost the harvesting potential of solar photons and the effectiveness of the photothermal effect, while the heterostructure benefits the generation, separation, and lifetime of electron-hole pairs on the photo reactivity of HOTi-[O]-Ti SFLPs towards H2 heterolysis and CO2 reduction. The paradigm of integrating disorder engineering with surface frustrated Lewis pairs in a core-shell crystalline-amorphous c-TiO2@a-TiO2-x(OH)y heterostructure provides a new paradigm for designing and implementing photocatalysts for synthesizing sustainable fuels from carbon dioxide feedstock. The related results have been published on Nature Communications（https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34798-1）and chosen as Highlights (https://www.nature.com/collections/ihbfhbiibg）.
Fig. 1 SFLPs, confined to the surface of the amorphous shell of the c-TiO2@a-TiO2-x(OH)y heterostructure, facilitate record photocatalysis CO2 performance.
Link to article：https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34798-1
Article Title：Engineered disorder in CO2 photocatalysis
Authors：Zhao Li#, Chengliang Mao#, Qijun Pei, Paul N. Duchesne, Teng He, Meikun Xia, Jintao Wang, Lu Wang, Rui Song, Abdinoor A. Jelle, Débora Motta Meira, Qingjie Ge, Kulbir Kaur Ghuman*, Le He, Xiaohong Zhang*, Geoffrey A. Ozin*
Editor: Guo Jia