Hollow Multi-Shelled Structures of Co3O4 Dodecahedron with Unique Crystal Orientation for Enhanced Photocatalytic CO2 Reduction

Li Wang; Jiawei Wan; Yasong Zhao; Nailiang Yang; Dan Wang

doi:10.1021/jacs.8b13528

Hollow Multi-Shelled Structures of Co₃O₄ Dodecahedron with Unique Crystal Orientation for Enhanced Photocatalytic CO₂ Reduction

J Am Chem Soc. 2019 Feb 13;141(6):2238-2241. doi: 10.1021/jacs.8b13528. Epub 2019 Feb 5.

Authors

Li Wang^{1

2}, Jiawei Wan², Yasong Zhao^{1

2}, Nailiang Yang^{2

3}, Dan Wang^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering , Harbin Institute of Technology , Harbin 150001 , P. R. China.
² State Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering , Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100190 , P. R. China.
³ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100049 , P. R. China.

PMID: 30714724
DOI: 10.1021/jacs.8b13528

Abstract

Structure and facet control are considered to be effective routes to enhance catalytic performance. We successfully synthesized hollow multi-shelled structures (HoMSs) of a Co₃O₄ dodecahedron by adopting metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as templates and using the sequential templating approach (STA). Importantly, owing to the topological arrangement of metal atoms in MOFs, the Co₃O₄ nanocrystals in HoMSs are assembled in the desired orientation, forming a unique shell with dominant exposure of (111) facets. This process is defined as "genetic inheritance" in this work. In addition, these exposed facets possess high activity for photocatalytic CO₂ reduction. Adding this to the properties inherited from HoMSs, i.e., multiple interfaces and strong solar light harvesting, these Co₃O₄ HoMSs present high catalytic activity for CO₂ photoreduction. The catalytic activity of quadruple-shelled (QS) Co₃O₄ HoMSs was about 5 and 3 times higher than that of Co₃O₄ nanoparticles and Co₃O₄ HoMSs without facet control, respectively.