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Integrating CO2 reduction with methanol oxidation presents a promising alternative strategy to store solar energy in CO2 reduction and produce more sustainable clean fuels and chemicals products, while identifying the carbon sources in the final products and elucidating the interactions between CO2 and methanol within such a mixed system is still particularly challenging. Herein, this study explores the efficiency of synergistic photocatalytic CO2 reduction and methanol oxidation via self-photogenerated oxygen vacancy-rich TiO2 nanostructures. Employing NMR spectroscopy and GC–MS analysis for 13CO2 isotope tracing samples, the exact carbon sources in both liquid and gas-phase products were clearly figure out. Moreover, through in situ DRIFTS analysis and DFT calculations, the crucial role of oxygen vacancies in enhancing catalytic activity and selectivity is revealed, and the CO2 reduction and methanol oxidation pathway on oxygen vacancy-rich TiO2 nanostructures are proposed. Consequently, our findings offer profound implications for advancing the field of synergistic photocatalytic processes, aiming to generate high-value chemical fuels sustainably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herein, Cu-foam-supported CuO nanowire arrays covered with Cu 2 S nanosheet substrates (Cu/CuO/Cu 2 S) are adopted as efficient photoelectrodes for photorechargeable lithium-ion batteries (PR-LIBs). The assembled PR-LIB exhibits remarkable solar energy conversion efficiency alongside superior lithium storage capabilities. Without an electrical power supply, the photocharged PR-LIB sustained a discharge process for 63.0 h under a constant current density of 0.05 mA cm -2 . The corresponding solar-to-electrical energy conversion efficiency is 4.50%, which is an impressive achievement among recently reported contemporary technologies. Mechanism investigation shows that the Cu/CuO/Cu 2 S photogenerated carriers augment the extraction and insertion of Li + according to different oxidation and reduction reactions in the charging and discharging reactions. This research delineates a refined model system and proposes innovative directions for developing efficient heterojunction photoelectrodes, significantly propelling the development of PR-LIB technology.

The interaction within heterogeneous nanostructures can provide a great opportunity to radically enhance their electrocatalytic properties and increase their activity and durability. Here a rational, simple, and integrated strategy is reported to construct uniform and strongly coupled metal-metal oxide-graphene nanostructure as an electrocatalyst with high performance. We first simply synthesized the interacted SnO2-prGO (protected and reduced graphene oxide) hybrid with SnO2 nanoparticles (∼4 nm) selectively anchored on the oxygenated defects of rGO using an in situ redox and hydrolysis reaction. After the deposition of Pt, uniform Pt NPs are found to contact intimately and exclusively with the SnO2 phase in the SnO2-prGO hybrid. This constructed nanostructure (Pt-SnO2-prGO) exhibits significantly improved electrocatalytic activity (2.19-fold) and durability (2.08-fold) toward methanol oxidation over that of the state-of-the-art Pt/C catalyst. The detailed explanation of the strong coupling between SnO2 and graphene as well as between Pt and SnO2 is discussed, revealing that such a process can be used to immobilize various metal catalysts on metal-oxide-decorated catalysts for realizing advanced catalytic systems with enhanced performance.