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Abstract Controllable methanol production in artificial photosynthesis is highly desirable due to its high energy density and ease of storage. Herein, single atom Fe is implanted into TiO 2 /SrTiO 3 (TSr) nanotube arrays by two‐step anodization and Sr‐induced crystallization. The resulting Fe‐TSr with both single Fe reduction centers and dominant oxidation facets (001) contributes to efficient CO 2 photoreduction and water oxidation for controlled production of CH 3 OH and CO/CH 4 . The methanol yield can reach to 154.20 µmol g cat −1 h −1 with 98.90% selectivity by immersing all the catalyst in pure water, and the yield of CO/CH 4 is 147.48 µmol g cat −1 h −1 with >99.99% selectivity when the catalyst completely outside water. This CH 3 OH yield is 50 and 3 times higher than that of TiO 2 and TSr and stands among all the state‐of‐the‐art catalysts. The facile gas–solid and gas–liquid–solid phase switch can selectively control CH 3 OH production from ≈0% (above H 2 O) to 98.90% (in H 2 O) via slowly immersing the catalyst into water, where abundant •OH and H 2 O around Fe sites play important role in selective CH 3 OH production. This work highlights a new insight for water‐mediated CO 2 photoreduction to controllably produce CH 3 OH.
Huang et al. (Wed,) studied this question.