Efficient Conversion of Carbon Dioxide on Atomically Dispersed Metal–Nx Species-Anchored Porous Carbon with Embedded CuxCoy Nanoparticles by Accelerating Electron Separation
Jun Cheng, Xiao Yang, Xiaoxu Xuan, Niu Liu, Junhu Zhou
Abstract
To promote methanol product selectivity in CO2 reduction through photoelectrochemical reactions, a novel hybrid electrocatalyst (CuCo/NC) was developed to enhance electron transfer from cobalt to copper atoms with coordinated nitrogen on a ZIF-derived carbon matrix. The binding energies of Co 2p3/2 in CuCo/NC exhibited a 0.2 eV shifting to lower values, whereas those of Cu 2p3/2 exhibited a lower value shift by 1.5 eV, both of which contributed to electron transfer from Co to Cu. DFT calculations showed that the C–Co bond length (1.808 Å) between the CO* intermediate and CuCo/NC electrocatalyst was shorter than those in Cu/NC and Co/NC (1.946 and 1.870 Å, respectively), indicating that CO* was easier to adsorb on the CuCo/NC electrocatalyst for further reduction. The CuCo/NC electrocatalyst with stable properties efficiently converted CO2 into methanol (FE > 60%) with a carbon atom conversion rate of 4098 nmol h–1 cm–2.