Atomic‐level insight of sulfidation‐engineered Aurivillius‐related Bi2O2SiO3 nanosheets enabling visible light low‐concentration CO2 conversion

Abstract Unraveling atomic‐level active sites of layered photocatalyst towards low‐concentration CO 2 conversion is still challenging. Herein, the yield and selectivity of photocatalytic CO 2 reduction of the Aurivillius‐related oxide semiconductor Bi 2 O 2 SiO 3 nanosheet (BOSO) were largely improved using a surface sulfidation strategy. The experiment and theoretical calculation confirmed that surface sulfidation of the Bi 2 O 2 SiO 3 nanosheet (S‐BOSO, 6.28 nm) redistributed the charge‐enriched Bi sites, extended the solar spectrum absorption to the whole visible range, and considerably enhanced the charge separation, in addition to creating new reaction active sites, as compared to pristine BOSO. Subsequently, surface sulfidation played a switchable role, wherein S‐BOSO showed a very high CH 3 OH generation rate (12.78 µmol g −1 for 4 h, 78.6% selectivity) from low‐concentration CO 2 (1000 ppm) under visible light irradiation, which outperforms most of the state‐of‐the‐art photocatalysts under similar conditions. This study presents an atomic‐level modification protocol for engineering reactive sites and charge behaviors to promote solar‐to‐energy conversion.