Sulfur‐Decorated Ni−N−C Catalyst for Electrocatalytic CO<sub>2</sub> Reduction with Near 100 % CO Selectivity
Song Lu, Yang Zhang, Mohamed F. Mady, Obinna Egwu Eleri, Wakshum Mekonnen Tucho, Michal Mazur, Ang Li, Fengliu Lou, Minfen Gu, Zhixin Yu
Abstract
Abstract Developing highly efficient electrocatalysts for electrochemical CO 2 reduction (ECR) to value‐added products is important for CO 2 conversion and utilization technologies. In this work, a sulfur‐doped Ni−N−C catalyst is fabricated through a facile ion‐adsorption and pyrolysis treatment. The resulting Ni−NS−C catalyst exhibits higher activity in ECR to CO than S‐free Ni−N−C, yielding a current density of 20.5 mA cm −2 under −0.80 V versus a reversible hydrogen electrode (vs. RHE) and a maximum CO faradaic efficiency of nearly 100 %. It also displays excellent stability with negligible activity decay after electrocatalysis for 19 h. A combination of experimental investigations and DFT calculations demonstrates that the high activity and selectivity of ECR to CO is due to a synergistic effect of the S and Ni−N X moieties. This work provides insights for the design and synthesis of nonmetal atom‐decorated M−N−C‐based ECR electrocatalysts.