Metal Ionic Liquids Produce Metal‐Dispersed Carbon‐Nitrogen Networks for Efficient CO2 Electroreduction

• Published in: ChemCatChem 2019-07, Vol.11 (14), p.3166-3170
• Main Authors: Cheng, Xiuyan, Tan, Dongxing, Zeng, Shaojuan, Zhang, Xiangping, Tan, Xiuniang, Shi, Jinbiao, Zhang, Bingxing, Zheng, Lirong, Zhang, Fanyu, Feng, Jiaqi, Liu, Lifei, Wan, Qiang, Chen, Gang, Han, Buxing, Zhang, Jing, An, Pengfei, Zhang, Jianling
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Carbon; Carbon dioxide; Catalysis; Chemical reduction; CO2 reduction; coordination; Dispersion; electrocatalyst; Ionic liquids; Ions; metal ionic liquid; Nitrogen; Pyrolysis; Solvents; Synthesis
• ISSN: 1867-3880; 1867-3899
• DOI: 10.1002/cctc.201900615

To develop novel strategies for fabricating metal carbon‐based materials with desirable compositions and structures for catalysis is of great importance. Here we propose for the first time the utilization of metal ionic liquid as a precursor for the synthesis of metal carbon‐based materials through a one‐step pyrolysis route. The method produces the metal dispersed cross‐linked carbon framework with a highly mesoporous structure. Such a Ni/C−N catalyst exhibits outstanding electrocatalytic activity for CO2 reduction reaction, i. e., an excellent CO faradaic efficiency of approximately 94 % at an potential of −0.75 V (versus the reversible hydrogen electrode). The method proposed in this work is simple, convenient, low‐cost, adjustable and versatile for the synthesis of different kinds of M/C−N materials because the structures and properties of metal ionic liquids can be easily designed and tuned by changing the anions and cations. It′s all connected: Here we propose for the first time the utilization of metal ionic liquid for the one‐step synthesis of Ni/C−N material, which has a highly mesoporous cross‐linked framework and exhibits outstanding electrocatalytic performance for CO2 reduction.