Tuning Crystallinity and Surface Hydrophobicity of a Cobalt Phosphide Cocatalyst to Boost CO2 Photoreduction Performance

Photocatalytic CO 2 conversion is promising to yield carbon fuels, but it is still quite challenging to regulate catalytic materials to enhance reaction efficiency with tunable product selectivity. In this contribution, we demonstrate a facile and efficient method by thermal post-treatment to ameliorate crystallinity and surface hydrophobicity of a cobalt phosphide (CoP) cocatalyst, which promotes separation and transfer of photo-excited charge carriers, as well as reinforces CO 2 chemisorption and weakens H 2 O affinity. As a result, compared with pristine CoP, the optimal CoP-600 cocatalyst displays 3.5-time-enhanced activity and 2.3-time-increased selectivity for the reduction of CO 2 to CO with a rate of 68.1 μmol h -1 .