Bismuth-induced integration of solar energy conversion with synergistic low-temperature catalysis in Ce_1-xBi_xO_2-δ nanorods

For conventional photocatalysis, the energy threshold rather than merely the spectral response is always restricted that the infrared part (48% of solar energy) has never been efficiently utilized, undesirably elevating the temperature and damaging the photon-to-electron conversion. It remains challenging to conquer the IR-related contradiction and integrate the infrared energy into the solar energy conversion. Herein, we logically designed a Bi-induced synergistic photo/thermocatalyst (fluorite Ce_1-xBi _xO_2-δ nanorods), where the coupled ionic conductivity accompanying highly reductive Bi and concomitant oxygen vacancies helped bring about integration of photocatalysis with synergistic low temperature (20-80 C, IR-driven) catalysis, promising for the effective utilization of infrared energy. More generally, through our results a feasible methodology is verified in detail that integration of semiconductor photocatalysis with solid state ionics may help design brand new catalysts, shedding light on the practical solar energy conversion.