Abstract
Photocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide (CO(2)) to hydrocarbons by using nanostructured materials activated by solar energy is a promising approach to recycling CO(2) as a fuel feedstock. CO(2) photoreduction, however, suffers from low efficiency mainly due to the inherent drawback of fast electron-hole recombination in photocatalysts. This work reports the synthesis of nanostructured composites of titania (TiO(2)) nanoparticles (NPs) encapsulated by reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanosheets via an aerosol approach. The role of synthesis temperature and TiO(2)/GO ratio in CO(2) photoreduction was investigated. As-prepared nanocomposites demonstrated enhanced CO(2) conversion performance as compared with that of pristine TiO(2) NPs due to the strong electron trapping capability of the rGO nanosheets.