Confinement of SnCu<i><sub>x</sub></i>O<sub>2+</sub><i><sub>x</sub></i> Nanoclusters in Zeolites for High‐Efficient Electrochemical Carbon Dioxide Reduction
Yanbin Zhu, Peize Li, Xiaoju Yang, Muqin Wang, Muqin Wang, Yali Zhang, Pengkun Gao, Qikang Huang, Yan Wei, Xuan Yang, Deyu Wang, Yan Shen, Mingkui Wang, Mingkui Wang
Abstract
Abstract Electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO 2 RR) to methane has achieved impressive Faradaic efficiencies of over 40% with copper‐based catalysts including Cu 2 O, copper‐silver alloys and others. Although copper‐based catalysts work effectively in the CO 2 RR, they suffer from a major disadvantage: low selectivity of desired products due to the difficulty of regulating the intermediate coverage on the catalyst surface. Here, this work presents new SnCu x O 2+ x nanocluster electrocatalysts encapsulated in purely siliceous MFI zeolites (coded as SnCu x O 2+ x @MFI) for a high‐efficient CO 2 RR. This allows the formation of *CO intermediates in the channels of zeolites, which further undergoes a multi‐step protonation process to generate methane, a very attractive feature for Li‐CO 2 batteries that use the CO 2 RR catalyst as the cathode. The obtained SnCu 1.5 O 3.5 @MFI catalyst possesses a desired catalytic performance with the Faradaic efficiency of CO 2 reduction to methane at 66.6 ± 3.2% in a 0.1 m KHCO 3 electrolyte. Using the SnCu 1.5 O 3.5 @MFI as a cathode within a Li‐CO 2 battery, this work achieves a full discharge specific capacity of 23 000 mAh g −1 at a cut‐off voltage of 2.0 V (vs Li + /Li) and an operational life over 100 cycles at 1000 mAh g −1 cutoff specific capacity. This novel confinement catalyst offers a viable pathway to develop efficient CO 2 RR and Li‐CO 2 batteries with attractive properties for practical applications.