Scalable synthesis of coordinatively unsaturated metal-nitrogen sites for large-scale CO2 electrolysis

Ji Wei Sun, Xuefeng Wu, Peng Fei Liu (), Jiacheng Chen, Yuanwei Liu, Zhen Xin Lou, Jia Yue Zhao, Hai Yang Yuan, Aiping Chen, Xue Lu Wang, Minghui Zhu, Sheng Dai () and Hua Gui Yang ()
Additional contact information
Ji Wei Sun: East China University of Science and Technology
Xuefeng Wu: East China University of Science and Technology
Peng Fei Liu: East China University of Science and Technology
Jiacheng Chen: East China University of Science and Technology
Yuanwei Liu: East China University of Science and Technology
Zhen Xin Lou: East China University of Science and Technology
Jia Yue Zhao: East China University of Science and Technology
Hai Yang Yuan: East China University of Science and Technology
Aiping Chen: East China University of Science and Technology
Xue Lu Wang: East China Normal University
Minghui Zhu: East China University of Science and Technology
Sheng Dai: East China University of Science and Technology
Hua Gui Yang: East China University of Science and Technology

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Practical electrochemical CO2-to-CO conversion requires a non-precious catalyst to react at high selectivity and high rate. Atomically dispersed, coordinatively unsaturated metal-nitrogen sites have shown great performance in CO2 electroreduction; however, their controllable and large-scale fabrication still remains a challenge. Herein, we report a general method to fabricate coordinatively unsaturated metal-nitrogen sites doped within carbon nanotubes, among which cobalt single-atom catalysts can mediate efficient CO2-to-CO formation in a membrane flow configuration, achieving a current density of 200 mA cm−2 with CO selectivity of 95.4% and high full-cell energy efficiency of 54.1%, outperforming most of CO2-to-CO conversion electrolyzers. By expanding the cell area to 100 cm2, this catalyst sustains a high-current electrolysis at 10 A with 86.8% CO selectivity and the single-pass conversion can reach 40.4% at a high CO2 flow rate of 150 sccm. This fabrication method can be scaled up with negligible decay in CO2-to-CO activity. In situ spectroscopy and theoretical results reveal the crucial role of coordinatively unsaturated metal-nitrogen sites, which facilitate CO2 adsorption and key *COOH intermediate formation.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36688-6 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:14:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-36688-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-36688-6

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().