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Abstract Photocatalytic reduction of CO 2 to value‐added liquid fuels is a promising approach to alleviate the global energy and environmental problems. However, highly selective production of C2+ products from CO 2 reduction reaction (CO 2 RR) is very difficult because of the sluggish CC coupling reaction. An asymmetric coupled heteronuclear photocatalyst is designed to overcome this limitation. The new catalyst contains single atoms of nickel and cobalt loaded on titanium dioxide. It exhibits an impressive 71% selectivity for acetic acid. The experimental data and theoretical calculations reveal that the Ni and Co single atom sites not only significantly lower the energy barrier of electron transfer in photocatalysis but also efficiently promote the CC coupling toward CH 3 COOH. The high activity of such a heteronuclear catalyst system will shed light on the future development of effective materials for CO 2 RR.
Jia et al. (Tue,) studied this question.