Turning Carbon Dioxide and Ethane into Ethanol by Solar-Driven Heterogeneous Photocatalysis over RuO2- and NiO-co-Doped SrTiO3

The current work focused on the sunlight-driven thermo-photocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2), primary greenhouse gas, by ethane (C2H6), second most abundant element in shale aiming at generation ethanol (EtOH), a renewable fuel. To promote this process, hybrid catalyst was prepared and properly characterized, comprising strontium titanate (SrTiO3) co-doped with ruthenium oxide (RuO2) nickel (NiO). photocatalytic activity towards EtOH production assessed batch-mode gas-phase, under influence different conditions: (i) dopant loading; (ii) temperature; (iii) optical radiation wavelength; (vi) consecutive uses; (v) electron scavenger addition. From results here obtained, it found that: functionalization SrTiO3 RuO2 NiO allows visible light harvest narrows band gap energy (ca. 14–20%); selectivity depends presence Ni irradiation; photoresponse is mainly due to photons; (iv) photocatalyst loses > 50% efficiency right after 2nd use; reaction mechanism based photogenerated electron-hole pair charge separation; maximum yield 64 ?mol gcat?1 obtained 45-min (85 h?1) simulated solar irradiation (1000 W m?2) 200 °C, using 0.4 g L?1 SrTiO3:RuO2:NiO (0.8 wt.% Ru) [CO2]:[C2H6] [Ru]:[Ni] molar ratios 1:3 1:1, respectively. Notwithstanding, despite its exploratory nature, study offers an alternative route fuels’ synthesis from underutilized C2H6 CO2.