Hierarchical Double-Shelled CoP Nanocages for Efficient Visible-Light-Driven CO2 Reduction.

Visible-light-driven photocatalytic CO2 reduction is considered an appealing strategy to mitigate the energy crisis and environmental issues, whereas the reactivity is limited due to the difficulties in activation of inert CO2 molecule and efficient transportation of photoinduced carriers. Herein, we report the design of novel Fe doped CoP hierarchical double-shelled nanocages (Fe-CoP HDSNC) via a MOF-templated approach for highly efficient visible-light-driven CO2 reduction. The unique hierarchical double-shelled hollow architectures can greatly shorten the charge transfer distances and also expose abundant reactive sites. Moreover, Fe atoms doping is able to reduce the CO2 activation energy barrier through stabilizing the *COOH intermediates and promote the CO desorption by destabilizing the CO* adduct. As expected, the Fe-CoP HDSNC achieves an unprecedented catalytic efficiency in visible-light-driven CO2 reduction with an up to 3.25% apparent quantum yield and 90.3% CO selectivity, superior to most of the state-of-the-art photocatalysts under comparable conditions. More importantly, the Fe-CoP HDSNC is also highly effective under diluted CO2 atmosphere, suggesting the practicability of the present photocatalytic system.