The use of CuO-based photocatalysts for CO₂ photoreduction has been extensively reported in the literature. However, the comparison of the photocatalytic activity and selectivity from the published results becomes difficult due to different experimental conditions (i.e., synthesis method, configuration of photocatalyst, flow rate of gas, water content, light intensity) and reactor geometry employed. Hence, in this work different conformations of CuO-based photocatalyst, namely powder (i.e., synthesized using precipitation, sonochemical and hydrothermal-microwave treatment), coating on glass fiber mesh, and thin film, were tested using the same photoreactor and experimental conditions. All CuO photocatalysts exhibited 100 % product selectivity towards CH₄ over CO and the CuO coating on the glass fiber mesh exhibited the highest production of CH₄ (56.3 μmol g_cat⁻¹ h⁻¹). The morphology, particle size, particle dispersity, and presence of impurities/defects within the CuO photocatalysts had a significant effect on photocatalytic activity. A numerical model, which was built using COMSOL, revealed that the experimental data obtained in this simulated photocatalytic activity study fitted well, however, further optimization was needed.

文献中广泛报道了使用基于CuO 的光催化剂进行CO ₂光还原。然而，由于不同的实验条件（即合成方法、光催化剂的配置、气体流速、水含量、光强度）和所采用的反应器几何形状，从已发表的结果中比较光催化活性和选择性变得困难。因此，在这项工作中，使用相同的光反应器和实验条件测试了不同构象的 CuO 基光催化剂，即粉末（即，使用沉淀、声化学和水热微波处理合成）、玻璃纤维网涂层和薄膜。所有 CuO 光催化剂都对 CH 表现出 100% 的产物选择性₄超过 CO 和玻璃纤维网上的 CuO 涂层表现出最高的 CH ₄产量（56.3 μmol g _cat ^-1 h ^-1）。CuO 光催化剂中的形态、粒径、粒子分散性和杂质/缺陷的存在对光催化活性有显着影响。使用 COMSOL 建立的数值模型表明，在该模拟光催化活性研究中获得的实验数据拟合良好，但需要进一步优化。