Syngas production by photoreforming of formic acid with 2D V_xW_1−xN_1.5 solid solution as an efficient cocatalyst

Abstract

Formic acid (FA) is a potential biomass resource of syngas with contents of carbon monoxide (CO, 60 wt.%) and hydrogen (H₂, 4.4 wt.%). Among the technologies for FA conversion, the photoreforming of FA has received widespread attention due to its use of green solar energy conversion technology and mild reaction conditions. Herein, a V–W bimetallic solid solution, V_xW_1−xN_1.5 with efficient co-catalytic properties was first and facilely synthesized. When CdS was used as a photocatalyst, the activity performance of the V_0.1W_0.9N_1.5 system was over 60% higher than that of the W₂N₃ system. The computational simulations and experiments showed the V_0.1W_0.9N_1.5 had great metallic features and large work functions, contributing a faster photo-generated carrier transfer and less recombination, finally facilitating a great performance in cocatalyst for syngas production in photoreforming FA. This work provides an approach to synthesizing novel transition metal nitrides for photocatalysis.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

photocatalysis / syngas / formic acid / cocatalyst / solid solution

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Basic Science Center Program for Ordered Energy Conversion of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51888103), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52376209), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant Nos. 2020M673386, and 2020T130503), the Natural Science Basic Research Program of Shaanxi Province, China (Grant No. 2019JCW-10), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China.

Competing Interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this paper at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-024-0940-x and is accessible for authorized users.

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