Facile electron delivery from graphene template to ultrathin metal-organic layers for boosting CO2 photoreduction
Abstract Metal-organic layers (MOLs) with ordered structure and molecular tunability are of great potential as heterogeneous catalysts due to their readily accessible active sites. Herein, we demonstrate a facile template strategy to prepare MOLs with a uniform thickness of three metal coordination layers (ca. 1.5 nm) with graphene oxide (GO) as both template and electron mediator. The resulting MOL@GO exhibits an outstanding performance for CO2 photoreduction with a record-high total CO yield of 3133 mmol/gMOL among all the metal-organic framework and MOL catalysts (CO selectivity of 95%). This performance is ca. 34 times higher than that of bulky Co-MOF, [CoL(H2O)2]•0.5H2O (H2L = 5-(1H-1,2,4-triazol-1-yl)isophthalic acid). Systematic studies reveal that well exposed active sites in MOLs, and facile electron transfer between heterogeneous and homogeneous components mediated by GO, greatly contribute to its high activity. This work highlights a facile way for constructing ultrathin MOLs and demonstrate charge transfer pathway between conductive template and catalyst for boosting photocatalysis.