Highly Efficient, Selective, and Stable CO₂ Electroreduction on a Hexagonal Zn Catalyst

Abstract

Electrocatalytic CO2 conversion into fuel is a prospective strategy for the sustainable energy production. However, still many parts of the catalyst such as low catalytic activity, selectivity, and stability are challenging. Herein, a hierarchical hexagonal Zn catalyst showed highly efficient and, more importantly, stable performance as an electrocatalyst for selectively producing CO. Moreover, we found that its high selectivity for CO is attributed to morphology. In electrochemical analysis, Zn (101) facet is favorable to CO formation whereas Zn (002) facet favors the H2 evolution during CO2 electrolysis. Indeed, DFT calculations showed that (101) facet lowers a reduction potential for CO2 to CO by more effectively stabilizing a (.) COOH intermediate than (002) facet. This further suggests that tuning the crystal structure to control (101)/(002) facet ratio of Zn can be considered as a key design principle to achieve a desirable product from Zn catalyst.

Water Splitting–Biosynthetic Hybrid System for CO2 Conversion using Nickel Nanoparticles Embedded in N‐Doped Carbon Nanotubes

“…[1][2][3] Carbon capture and utilization are major challenges for building as ustainable society. [6][7][8][9] Nevertheless, severalc hallenges still must be overcome, such as (1) low value of CRR products,( 2) low products selectivity,a nd (3) low energy efficiency. [6][7][8][9] Nevertheless, severalc hallenges still must be overcome, such as (1) low value of CRR products,( 2) low products selectivity,a nd (3) low energy efficiency.…”

Metal‐Free Nitrogen‐Doped Mesoporous Carbon for Electroreduction of CO2 to Ethanol

“…[1][2][3] As the catalysts for CO 2 electroreduction, metals [4][5][6][7] and metallic complexes [8][9][10] have been extensively investigated. As ar emedy,C O 2 can be electroreduced to value-added chemicals or fuels driven by low-grade renewable electricity, enabling both renewable energy storage and an egative carbon cycle.…”

Exclusive Formation of Formic Acid from CO2 Electroreduction by a Tunable Pd‐Sn Alloy

“…[1][2][3] Although numerous metallic electrodes were extensively investigated for catalyzing CO 2 electroreduction, [4,5] most of them suffered from large overpotential, low faradaic efficiency (FE), and poor product selectivity owing to the competitive hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). This catalyst showed an early perfect faradaic efficiency towardf ormic acid formation at the very low overpotential of À0.26 V, where both CO formation and hydrogen evolution were completely suppressed.…”

“…[1][2][3] Although numerous metallic electrodes were extensively investigated for catalyzing CO 2 electroreduction, [4,5] most of them suffered from large overpotential, low faradaic efficiency (FE), and poor product selectivity owing to the competitive hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). [1][2][3] Although numerous metallic electrodes were extensively investigated for catalyzing CO 2 electroreduction, [4,5] most of them suffered from large overpotential, low faradaic efficiency (FE), and poor product selectivity owing to the competitive hydrogen evolution reaction (HER).…”