Construction of dual active sites on the CuAg plasmonic aerogel for simultaneously efficient photocatalytic CO2 reduction and H2 production.

Photocatalytic CO reduction and H production are a competitive reaction, and existing active sites cannot take into account the simultaneous gas-solid and liquid-solid reaction processes. Hence, a metallic aerogel (CuAg) with dual active sites was constructed via straightforward in-situ reduction process. CuAg aerosol has larger porosity and CO adsorption capacity, which enables HO and CO to fully contact it. The CuAg can also construct the cooperative dual active sites, which can conduct CO reduction reaction on Ag surface and proton reduction reaction on Cu surface, respectively, thereby efficiently guiding the rapid migration of photogenerated carriers. The yields of CO (18533 µmol g) and H (20340 µmol g) for CuAg are much higher than those of single metals. The ratio of CO and H can also regulated via changing the ratio of Ag and Cu. This work gives new insights into the fabrication of unique high-efficiency plasmonic photocatalysts.