Synergistic Cu/CeO2 carbon nanofiber catalysts for efficient CO2 electroreduction

The electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2RR) has attracted enormous interest because of the energy crisis and climate change; however, more efficient catalysts are required for practical applications. Herein, we present electrospinning as a facile strategy to synthesize a three-dimensiona...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Xin Zong, Jie Zhang, Jinqiu Zhang, Wen Luo, Andreas Züttel, Yueping Xiong
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2020-05-01
Series:Electrochemistry Communications
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1388248120300679
Description
Summary:The electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2RR) has attracted enormous interest because of the energy crisis and climate change; however, more efficient catalysts are required for practical applications. Herein, we present electrospinning as a facile strategy to synthesize a three-dimensional network of carbon nanofibers embedded with Cu and CeOx nanoparticles (Cu/CeOx@CNFs) as a CO2RR catalyst. The Cu–CeOx interface produced using this method offers synergistic geometric and electronic effects which optimize the adsorption strength of reaction intermediates for the electroreduction of CO2 to CO. In a flow cell configuration, a current density of 100 mA cm−2 and a CO faradaic efficiency of 59.2% can be obtained at −0.60 V vs. RHE. Keywords: Copper, Ceria, Electrospinning, CO2 electroreduction, Flow cell
ISSN:1388-2481