ABSTRACT Solar‐light‐driven CO 2 photoreduction offers a promising route for mitigating carbon emissions while enabling sustainable fuel generation. Aurivillius‐type bismuth titanate (Bi 4 Ti 3 O 12 ) is an attractive photocatalyst owing to its structural stability and ferro‐/piezoelectric properties; however, its application in gas‐phase CO 2 conversion is severely limited by low surface area, weak CO 2 adsorption, and poor visible‐light absorption. To overcome these constraints, a visible‐light‐responsive heterojunction photocatalyst was constructed by coupling Bi 4 Ti 3 O 12 with high‐surface‐area CeO 2 via wet impregnation, followed by photodeposition of Pt nanoparticles (NPs). The optimized 1.0%‐Pt/20%‐Ce/BTO catalyst exhibits a pronounced enhancement in photocatalytic performance, delivering completely selective CH 4 formation with a yield of 6.64 µmol g −1 after 7 h of simulated solar irradiation, corresponding to activity enhancements of 7.7‐ and 9.5‐fold compared to pristine Bi 4 Ti 3 O 12 and CeO 2 , respectively. Structural and spectroscopic analyses reveal that Pt nanoparticles (∼3.2 nm) act as efficient electron traps and enhance visible‐light absorption. The enhanced activity and selectivity arise from synergistic effects of improved CO 2 adsorption, efficient charge separation across the heterojunction, prolonged charge‐carrier lifetime, and the reversible Ce 3+ /Ce 4+ redox couple in CeO 2 . This study demonstrates a straightforward and effective strategy for designing visible‐light‐driven heterostructures for highly selective gas‐phase CO 2 photoreduction.
Chaturvedi et al. (Sun,) studied this question.