Electrochemical
reduction of CO2 to carbon-containing
fuels possesses the potential to solve the environmental issues caused
by excess CO2 in the atmosphere. Herein, we introduce a
ternary Au-CDots-C3N4 electrocatalyst for efficiently
reducing CO2 to CO. The ternary catalyst exhibited significantly
enhanced activity and stability for CO2 electroreduction
in comparison with pure Au NPs. The Au-CDots-C3N4 electrocatalyst demonstrates a high CO FE of ∼79.8% at −0.5
V and a 2.8-fold enhancement of current density (with the Au loading
only 4 wt %) at −1.0 V relative to pure Au NPs. The DFT calculations
and experimental observations indicate that the high activity toward
CO2RR originates from the synergetic effect among Au NPs, CDots, and
C3N4 and the capability of H+ and
CO2 adsorption from CDots. The long-term stability tests
demonstrate that the electrocatalyst can be used for over 8 h without
obvious deactivations and maintained its activity over 60 days under
normal conditions.
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