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Metal‐Free Nitrogen‐Doped Mesoporous Carbon for Electroreduction of CO 2 to Ethanol
Author(s) -
Song Yanfang,
Chen Wei,
Zhao Chengcheng,
Li Shenggang,
Wei Wei,
Sun Yuhan
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.201706777
Subject(s) - heteroatom , faraday efficiency , catalysis , selectivity , carbon fibers , mesoporous material , nitrogen , chemistry , hydrogen , metal , inorganic chemistry , reversible hydrogen electrode , materials science , density functional theory , electrode , electrochemistry , organic chemistry , computational chemistry , ring (chemistry) , composite material , reference electrode , composite number
CO 2 electroreduction is a promising technique for satisfying both renewable energy storage and a negative carbon cycle. However, it remains a challenge to convert CO 2 into C2 products with high efficiency and selectivity. Herein, we report a nitrogen‐doped ordered cylindrical mesoporous carbon as a robust metal‐free catalyst for CO 2 electroreduction, enabling the efficient production of ethanol with nearly 100 % selectivity and high faradaic efficiency of 77 % at −0.56 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode. Experiments and density functional theory calculations demonstrate that the synergetic effect of the nitrogen heteroatoms and the cylindrical channel configurations facilitate the dimerization of key CO* intermediates and the subsequent proton–electron transfers, resulting in superior electrocatalytic performance for synthesizing ethanol from CO 2 .