Heterostructured nanocomposite tin phthalocyanine@mesoporous ceria (SnPc@CeO2) for photoreduction of CO2 in visible light

Heterostructured tin phthalocyanine supported to mesoporous ceria was synthesized and used a photocatalyst for CO2 reduction under visible light. The photoreduction CO2 activities of the heterostructures were investigated in the presence of triethylamine as sacrificial agent. The developed photocatalyst exhibited high catalytic activity for photoreduction of CO2 and after 24 hours of visible light irradiation 2342 mu mol g(-1) cat of methanol (phi(MeOH) = 0.0223 or 2.23%) and 840 mu mol g(-1) cat of CO (phi(CO) = 0.0026 or 0.26%) were obtained as the major reaction products. The methanol formation rate (R-MeOH) and CO formation rate (R-CO) was found to be 97.5 mmol h(-1) g(-1) cat and 35.0 mu mol h(-1) g(-1) cat respectively. While under the identical experimental conditions mesoporous ceria (meso-CeO2) gave only 316 mu mol g(-1) cat of methanol (phi(MeOH) = 0.003 or 0.30%) and 126 mu mol g(-1) cat CO (phi(CO) = 0.0004 or 0.04%) with product formation rate R-MeOH = 13.2 mu mol h(-1) g(-1) cat and R-CO = 5.3 mu mol h(-1) g(-1) cat. Furthermore, the recovered catalyst showed consistent catalytic activity for at least five runs without any significant loss in product yields.