Cover Feature: Visible Light-Sensitized CO2 Methanation along a Relaxed Heat Available Route (Chem. Eur. J. 63/2024)

The Cover Feature shows artificial photosynthesis to convert H₂O vapour/CO₂ into the value-added chemical CH₄. Intermediate temperature-sensitive Ti−H species are generated by the photosensitized PDI dye component of the Pt/N−TiO₂/PDI composite catalyst; this enables incident light energy that has relaxed into waste heat to locally heat a highly nucleophilic hydride for CO₂ addition to a COOH* intermediate. (Until now it had been thought that photocatalysis and temperature were almost negatively dependent.) Shown top left is the photoexcitation process by which electrons are transferred to the TiO₂ surface to generate Ti−H species; this converts 53 % of the relaxed incident light into a thermal effect to be re-used. Shown top right is the acceleration of the reaction rate through increasing the initial energy of the rate-limiting step as the catalyst surface temperature increases and it becomes easier to cross the activation barrier. More information can be found in the Research Article by D. Ma, H. Ji, W. Ma, and co-workers (DOI: 10.1002/chem.202402102).