Facile synthesis of N-doping carbon-encapsulated metal catalyst for CO2 electroreduction to CO

Electrocatalysis of CO2 to CO is not only conducive to the artificial carbon cycle, but also green and efficient technology for producing chemicals. In consideration of the practical application, the novel strategy for largescale preparation of catalyst has great potential to be developed. Herein, a facile one-step approach was developed for constructing a group of N-doping carbon-encapsulated metal catalysts (M@N-C (M = Fe, Co, and Ni)) for CO2 electroreduction to CO. In addition, the impact of metal on catalytic performance was detailedly researched. Specifically, the Ni@N-C catalyst achieves an excessive CO Faraday efficiency (FECO) (>90 %) on a broad achievable potential window of - 0.67 V to - 0.97 V vs RHE in the H-type cell. The optimal catalyst attains a FECO of 98 % at - 0.57 V vs RHE and an industrial-relevant current density of 430 mA cm-2 at - 1.07 V vs RHE in the flow cell. This work provides a facile way to fabricate catalyst on a large scale with preeminent performance for industrial CO2 electroreduction to CO.

Automated summary

A facile one-step approach was developed to construct N-doping carbon-encapsulated metal catalysts (M@N-C, M = Fe, Co, and Ni) for CO2 electroreduction to CO. Among them, the Ni@N-C catalyst achieved an excessive CO Faraday efficiency (FECO) (> 90%) on a broad achievable potential window (-0.67 V to -0.97 V vs RHE) in the H-type cell. In the flow cell, the optimized catalyst achieved a FECO of 98% and an industrial-relevant current density of 430 mA cm-2 at -1.07 V vs RHE. This work provides a facile way to fabricate catalysts on a large scale with preeminent performance for industrial CO2 electroreduction to CO.