Chloroplast-mimicking nanoreactor for enhanced CO2 electrocatalysis (IMAGE)
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In this paper, the authors reported the construction of a catalytic nanoreactor capable of achieving the highly selective and efficient reduction of CO2 to CO by mimicking chloroplasts in green plants. The chloroplast-mimicking nanoreactor is facilely obtained through the self-assembly of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) bilayer on the surface of a gold nanorod (GNR) electrocatalyst to form a core-shell structure. The CTAB bilayer mimics the chloroplast membrane to allow the simultaneous regulation of the transport of CO2 and protons to the GNR core and the GNR core imitates Rubisco enzymes to catalyze CO2 reduction reaction. Consequently, the selectivity of CO2 reduction to CO has been greatly enhanced.
Fig. 1. Schematic structures of chloroplast and their chloroplast-mimicking nanoreactor for CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR). (a) The ingenious structure of chloroplast allows the selective transport of different species through phospholipid bilayer (chloroplast membrane) and subsequent photosynthetic CO2 fixation via Rubisco enzyme catalysis occurring in chloroplast stroma. (b) Illustrations of their biomimetic design that employ cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) bilayer-modified gold nanorod catalysts for CO2RR in aqueous solution.
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