Although carbon dioxide (CO₂) and water (H₂O) have been converted into hydrocarbons, ranging from pentane (C₅H₁₂) to octadecane (C₁₈H₃₈) through an artificial photosynthesis reaction catalyzed by nanostructured Co/CoO, the mechanism of the reaction is not very clear. In this work, the isotope effect of carbon is studied by conducting the ¹³C/¹²C competition experiments using an equal molar ratio of ¹³CO₂ and ¹²CO₂ as the reagents. It is shown that the dissociation of ¹²CO₂ is easier than that of ¹³CO₂, and the same carbon isotope atoms have a relatively higher probability to bond together to form the hydrocarbon chains. The quantum mechanical analysis of the observed isotope effect helps us to better understand the mechanism for hydrocarbon synthesis.

尽管二氧化碳（CO ₂）和水（H ₂ O）已通过纳米结构Co / CoO催化的人工光合作用反应转化为碳氢化合物，从戊烷（C ₅ H ₁₂）到十八烷（C ₁₈ H ₃₈），反应机理不是很清楚。在这项工作中，通过使用等摩尔比的¹³ CO ₂和¹² CO ₂作为试剂进行¹³ C / ¹² C竞争实验研究碳的同位素效应。结果表明，¹² CO ₂的离解碳原子比¹³ CO ₂更容易，并且相同的碳同位素原子结合在一起形成烃链的可能性更高。所观察到的同位素效应的量子力学分析有助于我们更好地理解碳氢化合物的合成机理。