Issue 10, 2021

Boosting CO2 electroreduction to CO with abundant nickel single atom active sites

Abstract

The conversion of CO2 into value-added chemicals through the electrocatalytic CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) is considered as an up-and-coming way to facilitate the renewable closed carbon cycle and energy storage. Therefore, the development of robust and low-cost CO2RR electrocatalysts is essential but challenging. Herein, a Ni single-atom catalyst (Ni–SAs–NC) was successfully prepared via a precursor assembly strategy and a subsequent one-step pyrolysis process. Characterization studies demonstrate that abundant Ni single-atom active sites with the coordination structure of Ni–N4 are uniformly dispersed in Ni–SAs–NC, which consequently endow it with outstanding electrocatalytic CO2RR performance. Strikingly, the as-prepared Ni–SAs–NC can selectively convert CO2 into CO with a high faradaic efficiency of up to 98%, and can maintain the high values exceeding 90% in a wide potential range from −0.6 to −1.0 V. This work provides a new protocol to prepare high-efficiency but low-cost single-atom electrocatalysts toward the CO2RR and other electrochemical reactions.

Graphical abstract: Boosting CO2 electroreduction to CO with abundant nickel single atom active sites

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Research Article
Submitted
29 yan 2021
Accepted
19 mar 2021
First published
23 mar 2021

Inorg. Chem. Front., 2021,8, 2542-2548

Boosting CO2 electroreduction to CO with abundant nickel single atom active sites

W. Wang, C. Cao, K. Wang and T. Zhou, Inorg. Chem. Front., 2021, 8, 2542 DOI: 10.1039/D1QI00126D

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