CO2 electroreduction has attracted considerable investigations
due to the desirable coupling of renewable energy utilization and
value-added chemical production. However, it encounters the bottlenecks
of high energy barrier and low efficiency owing to the limited CO2 solubility and mass transfer. Herein, a porous Ni hollow
fiber encapsulated Bi@Zeolite catalyst was developed as a self-standing
gas diffusion electrode for efficient CO2 reduction to
CO. Such a delicate electrode configuration reinforces CO2 adsorption/activation on Bi@Zeolite active sites and favors mass
transfer due to a shortened and directed diffusion path. These synergetic
promotions induced by Bi@Zeolite encapsulated in Ni hollow fiber achieved
a high CO Faradaic efficiency of 74.1% at only an overpotential of
260 mV in the ionic-liquid based electrolyte, which was 2.6 times
that on the Ni foil planar configuration. In addition, both CO Faradaic
efficiency and current density remained almost constant for the duration
of a 16 h test, further indicating the superiority of the Ni hollow
fiber encapsulated configuration. This work demonstrates the potential
of using a hollow fiber to reinforce reaction kinetics for efficient
CO2 electroreduction.