Professor LI Yingxuan from College of Environment published article in the TOP international journal "Angew. Chem. Int. Ed."

Author: HAO Jianwu

Release: WANG Xingdong

Translator: HOU Yumo

Recently, Professor LI Yingxuan from the College of Environmental Science and Engineering has made important progress in carbon dioxide conversion. Related results were published in the TOP international journal "Angew. Chem. Int. Ed." under the title of "Plasmonic Hot Electrons from Oxygen Vacancies for Infrared Light-Driven Catalytic CO2Reduction on Bi2O3-x".(https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202010156). SUST is the first unit, Professor LI Yingxuan is the first author and corresponding author, and WEN Miaomiao, the graduate student of 2018, is the second author. This is the first time our university has published the "research paper" in this journal as the first unit.

As the main greenhouse gas, excessive emission of carbon dioxide is regarded as one of the important causes of global climate change. However, abundant carbon dioxide can be used as a carbon source, which can be converted into high value-added chemicals using solar energy and photocatalytic technology. This process is environmentally friendly and is one of the effective ways of carbon dioxide conversion. However, the current application of photocatalysts in the reduction of carbon dioxide is limited by the narrow light absorption range and low utilization rate. Most photocatalysts can only be active in the ultraviolet or visible region, and are effective for infrared light, which accounts for more than 50% of solar energy. Utilization is still a challenge.

In response to this scientific problem, Professor LI Yingxuan based his previous research on the growth mechanism of metal Bi (Nature Communications2017, 8, 14462, ACS Nano2016, 10, 2386, Chemistry of Materials2013, 25, 2045, Cryst. Growth Des. 2018, 18, 5808). Using Bi as the precursor, Bi2O3-x, an oxide of Bi with oxygen defects, is prepared by simple heat treatment in the air. Unlike traditional semiconductor materials, this material exhibits a clear plasma at 800-1400nm. Volume resonance absorption (most of the plasmon resonance materials reported in the literature are precious metal nanoparticles such as gold, silver, etc.). What is commendable is that this material achieves high-efficiency reduction of CO2 to produce CO under the action of near-infrared light, and the temperature at 940nm The apparent quantum yield reached 0.113%, which is three times higher than that at 450nm. This research provides an effective way to develop cheap, efficient, and broad-spectrum plasma photocatalysts.

Professor Li Yingxuan is an academic backbone introduced by the talent project of SUST, a member of the Photochemistry Professional Committee of the Chinese Renewable Energy Society, and the head of the youth innovation team of Shaanxi universities. He has won the National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Nomination Award and the first outstanding young scientist of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Mainly engaged in the controllable synthesis of photocatalytic materials and the basic research on the application of energy and environment. Currently, he is in charge of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (4 projects) and 14 provincial and ministerial projects. In recent years, he has published more than 40 SCI papers in Nat. Commun., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Environ. Sci. Technol., ACS Nano and other magazines.