0D/2D CeO₂/BiVO₄ S-scheme photocatalyst for production of solar fuels from CO₂

The production of hydrocarbon fuels is essential for the energy market to develop a green and sustainable environment. However, new pathways are being developed to accelerate energy production to fulfill energy demands. Here, we have developed an efficient 0D/2D CeO₂/BiVO₄ S-scheme heterojunction for producing methanol from CO₂ in visible illuminance. The developed heterojunction photocatalyst demonstrated the excellent yield of methanol and the production of CO and CH₄ in small amounts. The high yield of methanol refers to the effective charge separation and good basic sites at the heterojunction photocatalyst due to the CeO₂ content, which facilitates the accommodation of CO₂ molecules more efficiently at the CeO₂ surface and provides a higher yield of methanol than CeO₂ and BiVO₄ alone. In addition, the effective charge separation between CeO₂ and BiVO₄ provided excellent yields of C₁ solar fuels. The characteristic properties of the synthesized photocatalysts were examined using various spectroscopic and microscopic techniques. Also, the recovered photocatalyst exhibited relatively similar activity without leaching the metal content after five consecutive runs under identical experimental conditions.