Nitrogen dopant induced highly selective CO2 reduction over lotus-leaf shaped ZnO nanorods

Fang Lü; Haihong Bao; Fei He; Gaocan Qi; Jiaqiang Sun; Shusheng Zhang; Longchao Zhuo; Hui Yang; Guangzhi Hu; Jun Luo; Xijun Liu

doi:10.1039/D1QM00344E

Nitrogen dopant induced highly selective CO₂ reduction over lotus-leaf shaped ZnO nanorods†

Fang Lü,‡^a Haihong Bao,‡^a Fei He,‡^b Gaocan Qi,

*^a Jiaqiang Sun,

^c Shusheng Zhang,

^d Longchao Zhuo,^e Hui Yang,*^a Guangzhi Hu,

^f Jun Luo

^a and Xijun Liu

*^ag

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a Tianjin Key Lab for Photoelectric Materials & Devices, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384, China
E-mail: xjliu@tjut.edu.cn, gaocanqi@tjut.edu.cn, y.hui1021@tjut.edu.cn

^b Key Laboratory of Chemistry of Plant Resources in Arid Regions, State Key Laboratory Basis of Xinjiang Indigenous Medicinal Plants Resource Utilization, Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, China

^c State Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion, Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Taiyuan 030001, Shanxi, China

^d College of Chemistry, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450000, China

^e School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710048, Shanxi, China

^f College of Biological, Chemical Sciences and Engineering, Jiaxing University, Jiaxing, Zhejiang 314001, China

^g Key Laboratory of Civil Aviation Thermal Hazards Prevention and Emergency Response, Civil Aviation University of China, Tianjin, China

Abstract

Heteroatom doping offers great promise for boosting the electrocatalytic activity for the CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂RR). Herein, nitrogen-doped ZnO nanorods with a lotus-leaf shape were constructed as the active electrocatalysts, demonstrating enhanced CO₂RR performance with a maximum CO faradaic efficiency of 76% at −0.7 V (vs. reversible hydrogen electrode, RHE) and excellent durable activity of more than 30 h. Density functional calculations reveal that doping nitrogen in ZnO induced the reduction of free-energy barrier for the key intermediate (*COOH) formation and the enhancement of electron exchange, thereby leading to a notable improvement in the CO₂RR activity over these low-cost N-doped ZnO nanorods.

This article is part of the themed collection: FOCUS: Recent progress on electrocatalytic CO2 reduction

Materials Chemistry Frontiers

Nitrogen dopant induced highly selective CO₂ reduction over lotus-leaf shaped ZnO nanorods†

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