Tip carbon encapsulation customizes cationic enrichment and valence stabilization for low K+ acidic CO2 electroreduction
Abstract
Abstract Acidic electrochemical CO2 conversion is a promising alternative to overcome the low CO2 utilization. However, over-reliance on highly concentrated K+ to inhibit the hydrogen evolution reaction also causes (bi)carbonate precipitation to interfere with catalytic performance. In this work, under the screening and guidance of computational simulations, we present a carbon coated tip-like In2O3 electrocatalyst for stable and efficient acidic CO2 conversion to synthesize formic acid (HCOOH) with low K+ concentration. The carbon layer protects the oxidized In species with higher intrinsic activity from reductive corrosion, and also peripherally formulates a tip-induced electric field to regulate the adverse H+ attraction and desirable K+ enrichment. In an acidic electrolyte at pH 0.94, only 0.1 M low K+ is required to achieve a Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 98.9% at 300 mA cm−2 for HCOOH and a long-time stability of over100 h. By up-scaling the electrode into a 25 cm2 electrolyzer setup, a total current of 7 A is recorded to sustain a durable HCOOH production of 291.6 mmol L−1 h−1.
Article Details
Authors (15)
Zhitong Wang
Dongyu Liu
Chenfeng Xia
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Materials Processing and Die & Mould Technology, Key Laboratory of Material Chemistry for Energy Conversion and Storage (Ministry of Education), Hubei Key Laboratory of Material Chemistry and Service Failure, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), 1037 Luoyu Road, Wuhan 430074, China
Xiaodong Shi
Yansong Zhou
State Key Laboratory of Chemo and Biosensing, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Advanced Catalytic Engineering Research Center of the Ministry of Education
Qiuwen Liu
Jiangtao Huang
Haiyan Wu
Deyu Zhu
School of Basic Medical Sciences
Shuyu Zhang
Jing Li
Peilin Deng
Andrey S. Vasenko
HSE University
Bao Yu Xia
State Key Laboratory of New Textile Materials and Advanced Processing, Key Laboratory of Material Chemistry for Energy Conversion and Storage (Ministry of Education), Hubei Key Laboratory of Material Chemistry and Service Failure, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
Xinlong Tian
School of Marine Technology and Equipment, State Key Laboratory of Tropic Ocean Engineering Materials and Materials Evaluation, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering