Highly Active Photoreduction of Atmospheric-Concentration CO<inf>2</inf> into CH<inf>3</inf>COOH over Palladium Particles on Nb<inf>2</inf>O<inf>5</inf> Nanosheets

The endeavor to drive CO2 photoreduction towards the synthesis of C2 products is largely thwarted by the colossal energy hurdle inherent in C−C coupling. Herein, we load active metal particles on metal oxide nanosheets to build the dual metal pair sites for steering C−C coupling to form C2 products. Taking Pd particles anchored on the Nb2O5 nanosheets as an example, the high-angle annular dark-field image and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy demonstrate the presence of Pd−Nb metal pair sites on the Pd-Nb2O5 nanosheets. Density functional theory calculations reveal these sites exhibit a low reaction energy barrier of only 1.02 eV for C−C coupling, implying that the introduction of Pd particles effectively tailors the reaction step to form C2 products. Therefore, the Pd-Nb2O5 nanosheets achieve a CH3COOH evolution rate of 13.5 μmol g−1 h−1 in photoreduction of atmospheric-concentration CO2, outshining all other single photocatalysts reported to date under analogous conditions.