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Superior Selectivity and Tolerance towards Metal‐Ion Impurities of a Fe/N/C Catalyst for CO 2 Reduction
Author(s) -
Yang HuiJuan,
Zhang Xue,
Hong YuHao,
Sari Hirbod Maleki Kheimeh,
Zhou ZhiYou,
Sun ShiGang,
Li XiFei
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
chemsuschem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.412
H-Index - 157
eISSN - 1864-564X
pISSN - 1864-5631
DOI - 10.1002/cssc.201901330
Subject(s) - overpotential , catalysis , selectivity , faraday efficiency , chemistry , electrochemistry , inorganic chemistry , electrolyte , metal , aqueous solution , impurity , hydrogen , electrode , organic chemistry
The electrochemical CO 2 reduction reaction (CO 2 RR) in aqueous solution inevitably competes with the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), which results in a difficult separation of the complex products. In this study, a Fe/N/C catalyst derived from Fe(SCN) 3 (labelled SMFeSCN) revealed a high CO Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 99 % at a moderate overpotential of 0.44 V. CO 2 RR and HER competed with each other for active sites on Fe/N/C. The high FE for CO production originated from the high content of micropores on the catalyst, which could suppress the side reactions by increasing CO 2 uptake. More importantly, excellent tolerance towards metal‐ion impurities was demonstrated in Fe/N/C, which was primarily owing to the high specific surface area with scattered active sites. Thus, the Fe/N/C catalyst showed good activity for CO 2 RR without influencing the electrolyte purity, thus raising the possibility of its practical application.