No abstract

The excessive emission of CO and the energy crisis are two major issues facing humanity. Thus, the electrochemical reduction of CO and its utilization in metal-CO batteries have attracted wide attention because the batteries can simultaneously accelerate CO fixation/utilization and energy storage/release. Here, rechargeable Al-CO batteries are proposed and realized, which use chemically stable Al as the anode. The batteries display small discharge/charge voltage gaps down to 0.091 V and high energy efficiencies up to 87.7%, indicating an efficient battery performance. Their chemical reaction mechanism to produce the performance is revealed to be 4Al + 9CO ↔ 2Al (CO ) + 3C, by which CO is reversibly utilized. These batteries are envisaged to effectively and safely serve as a potential CO fixation/utilization strategy with stable Al.

Porous Mn2O3 cathode shows high catalytic activity and durability for CO2 electrochemical reduction and evolution reactions in Li–CO2 batteries.