Heterostructure catalyst of Cu-Y2O3 supported on Cu2Y2O5 perovskite in solar-driven water gas shift reaction

Water gas shift reaction (WGSR) is one of the important ways to achieve high-quality utilization of syngas. However, thermal catalysis requires a large amount of secondary energy input, which can lead to serious environmental pollution. Therefore, it is necessary to use clean energy sunlight to catalyze solar-driven WGSR to improve the conversion efficiency at lower temperatures. Here, we reported a facile sol-gel synthesis method to prepare Cu2Y2O5 perovskite, which was photoactivated by light irradiation in 10 cm to form a heterostructure catalyst of Cu-Y2O3 supported on Cu2Y2O5 perovskite. The results showed that the catalyst well exhibited photocatalytic performance (43.7% of CO conversion and about 17 mu mol center dot g(cat)(-1)center dot min(-1) and 26 mu mol center dot g(cat)(-1)center dot min(-1) of H-2 and CO2 production) and stabilized in 19 h in the solar-driven WGSR, while only 27.02% CO conversion can be achieve at about 150 degrees C on thermal WGSR. The physicochemical characterizations of the samples indicated that Cu-0 and Cu+ existed and formed Cu-0-Cu+ interface, which played a critical role in WGSR. Mechanism studies have shown that Cu2+ of photocatalysts would generate electrons and holes under light irradiation to accelerate the catalytic process of WGSR.

Automated summary

This study reports a sol-gel synthesis method to prepare Cu2Y2O5 perovskite, which forms a heterostructure catalyst of Cu-Y2O3 supported on Cu2Y2O5 perovskite by light activation. The catalyst exhibits good photocatalytic performance in solar-driven WGSR.