Adsorption-enhanced nitrogen-doped mesoporous CeO2 as an efficient visible-light-driven catalyst for CO2 photoreduction

Direct converting of CO2 to valuable fuels via solar-powered photoreduction is a promising green chemistry route. The key issue for this approach is the exploitation of low-cost and high-efficiency photocatalysts. Here, a novel nanoflakelet-constructed nitrogen-doped CeO2 with relatively ordered mesostructure (NMCe) is prepared through a facile and cheap urea-assisted template method. In comparison with nanocasted ordered mesoporous CeO2 (OMCe) with the similar textural properties, the NMCe shows improved CO2 adsorption ability and has lowered band gap energy, higher surface CO3+ concentration and more surface oxygen vacancies. Owing to these characteristics, the NMCe exhibits considerably enhanced photocatalytic performance for visible-light-driven reduction of CO2, where the yields of CO and CH4 are 2.5-fold higher than those on OMCe.