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Research Article

A general and facile calcination method to synthesize single-site catalysts for highly efficient electrochemical CO2 reduction

Rui Sui1, Bingyan Wang2, Yongsheng Wang3, Jiajing Pei4, Wei Zhu3, Wenxing Chen5, Chunhui Li2(), Ailing Sun2(), Zhongbin Zhuang3
Engineering Research Center of Advanced Rare Earth Materials, Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
College of Chemistry and Green Catalysis Center, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, China
State Key Lab of Organic-Inorganic Composites and Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China
Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Energy & Catalysis Center, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
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We designed a facile and scalable strategy for Ni-based single-atom catalyst (Ni-N1C3), which exhibits excellent CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) performance with CO Faradic efficiency (FECO) above 98% in a wide potential range from −0.7 to −1.3 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE).

Abstract

The electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) has received widespread attention as a promising method for producing sustainable chemicals and mitigating the global warming. Here, we demonstrate a general and facile synthetic route for the metal-nitrogen-carbon (M-N-C) type catalyst by simply calcinating metal acetate and urea with commercial carbon black, which have potential application in CO2RR. The synthesized Ni-NC-600 catalyst has the structure of single Ni atom coordinated with one N atom and three C atoms (Ni-N1C3), which is suggested by X-ray absorption spectroscopy. The Ni-NC-600 catalyst exhibits high CO2RR catalytic performance and a high CO Faraday efficiency above 98% in a wide potential range from −0.7 to −1.3 V (vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE)), superior to most of the reported Ni-N-C catalysts. This work has developed a facile strategy to synthesize high performance CO2RR catalyst.

Keywords

nickelsingle atom catalystCO2 reduction reactionCO productionelectrocatalyst

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Nano Research
Volume 17 Issue 5,
May 2024
Pages 3895-3901
DOI: 10.1007/s12274-023-6378-3
Cite this article:
Sui R, Wang B, Wang Y, et al. A general and facile calcination method to synthesize single-site catalysts for highly efficient electrochemical CO2 reduction. Nano Research, 2024, 17(5): 3895-3901. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-6378-3
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