Integrable utilization of intermittent sunlight and residual heat for on-demand CO 2 conversion with water

• Published in: Nature communications 2024-11, Vol.15 (1), p.10135
• Main Authors: Shi, Xianjin, Peng, Wei, Huang, Yu, Gao, Chao, Fu, Yiman, Wang, Zhenyu, Yang, Leting, Zhu, Zixuan, Cao, Junji, Rao, Fei, Zhu, Gangqiang, Lee, Shuncheng, Xiong, Yujie
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54587-2

Abundant residual heat from industrial emissions may provide energy resource for CO conversion, which relies on H gas and cannot be accomplished at low temperatures. Here, we report an approach to store electrons and hydrogen atoms in catalysts using sunlight and water, which can be released for CO reduction in dark at relatively low temperatures (150-300 °C), enabling on-demand CO conversion. As a proof of concept, a model catalyst is developed by loading single Cu sites on hexagonal tungsten trioxide (Cu/WO ). Under light illumination, hydrogen atoms are generated through photocatalytic water splitting and stored together with electrons in Cu/WO , forming a metastable intermediate (Cu/H WO ). Subsequent activation of Cu/H WO through low-temperature heating releases the stored electrons and hydrogen atoms, reducing CO into valuable products. Furthermore, we demonstrate the practical feasibility of utilizing natural sunlight to drive the process, opening an avenue for harnessing intermittent solar energy for CO utilization.