Designing catalytic nanostructures that can convert gaseous CO₂ into carbon based fuels is a significant challenge, which requires a keen understanding of the chemistry of reactants, intermediates and products on surfaces.

Materials engineering, theoretical modelling, reactor engineering and process development of gas-phase photocatalytic CO ₂ reduction exemplified by indium oxide systems.

Light harvesting, separation of charge carriers, and surface reactions are three fundamental steps that are essential for an efficient photocatalyst. Here we show that these steps in the TiO₂ can be boosted simultaneously by disorder engineering. A solid-state reduction reaction between sodium and TiO₂ forms a core-shell c-TiO₂@a-TiO_2-x(OH)_y heterostructure, comprised of HO-Ti-[O]-Ti surface frustrated Lewis pairs (SFLPs) embedded in an amorphous shell surrounding a crystalline core, which enables a new genre of chemical reactivity. Specifically, these SFLPs heterolytically dissociate dihydrogen at room temperature to form charge-balancing protonated hydroxyl groups and hydrides at unsaturated titanium surface sites, which display high reactivity towards CO₂ reduction. This crystalline-amorphous heterostructure also boosts light absorption, charge carrier separation and transfer to SFLPs, while prolonged carrier lifetimes and photothermal heat generation further enhance reactivity. The collective results of this study motivate a general approach for catalytically generating sustainable chemicals and fuels through engineered disorder in heterogeneous CO₂ photocatalysts.