Novel Bi4Ti3O12 hollow-spheres with highly-efficient CO2 photoreduction activity

The utilization of artificial photosynthesis technology to achieve CO2 green conversion to solar fuels has attracted great attentions. However, the research and development of highly-efficient photocatalytic materials have been the key scientific issues. In this work, novel Bi4Ti3O12 hollow-spheres (BTO-HS) with self-assembly structured nanosheets are successfully synthesized by simple hydrothermal-treatment process for the first time, and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS). The unique structural morphology and well-matched oxidation-reduction potentials of as-prepared BTO-HS result in the excellent optical responsiveness and effective photoinduced carriers, achieving the highly-efficient CO2 photoreduction activity with CO yield of 13.1 mu mol.g(-1).h(-1) (8 h), more than ultramodern reported 11.7 mu mol.g(-1).h(-1) (4 h) of ultrathin BTO nanosheets with OVs and 3.66 mu mol.g(-1) .h(-1) (4 h) of bulk BTO [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scib.2020.02.019] under simulated sunlight irradiation. More importantly, the CO yield only decreases about 3.8% after third-cycle test, indicating the outstanding active stability of BTO-HS. Our findings should provide a newfangled structural regulation strategy for constructing BTO-based photocatalysts with highly-efficient photocatalytic CO2 reduction performance.