Thermodynamically driven self-formation of copper-embedded nitrogen-doped carbon nanofiber catalysts for a cascade electroreduction of carbon dioxide to ethylene

Abstract

Cu acetate/PAN nanofibers were transformed into porous C nanofibers with doped N and Cu particles, via O2 partial pressure-controlled calcination. N atoms next to Cu trigger the CO2RR by increasing the amount of CO* on the Cu, lowering the energy needed for CO dimerization.

Structural design and mechanism analysis of hierarchical porous carbon fibers for advanced energy and environmental applications

“…Besides heteroatoms, PCFs have great capability to hybridize with metal and/or metal compound nanoparticles or atoms to achieve better catalytic ability, such as metal elements, 153,219,305,329–335 alloys, 53,336–342 metal oxides, 343,344 metal carbides, 345–351 metal sulfides 352 and other metal salts. 353–356 For example, Yu's group fabricated Fe 3 C nanoparticles encapsulated in a coexisting active mesoporous and microporous Fe–N-doped PCF catalyst via a multiplex template method.…”

“…Recently, owing to the advantage of porous structures, which can offer considerable channels for CO 2 diffusion and electron transport, PCFs as low-cost electrocatalysts for the CO 2 reduction reaction (CO 2 RR) also have received attention from the academic and industrial communities. 330,362–365 The micropores are mainly used to capture CO 2 molecules, while the meso- and macropores can allow the fast diffusion and adsorption of CO 2 in the micropores, resulting in CO 2 enrichment around the active sites. 366 For example, He and co-workers created a self-supported Ni single-atom decorated hierarchical PCF membrane catalyst from electrospun ZIF-8 for high-efficiency CO 2 RR.…”

Electrochemical oxidation of boron-doped nickel–iron layered double hydroxide for facile charge transfer in oxygen evolution electrocatalysts

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Among many candidates, hydrogen production through electrochemical water splitting, which is called green hydrogen production, or production through electrochemical CO 2 reduction are not only promising solutions to solve this problem but also can be conducted in combination with solar cells, increasing production sustainability. 2,[8][9][10] The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is essential to energy production reactions based on electrochemistry. [11][12][13] The OER plays the role of counterpart for each reaction occurring in electrochemical energy production, and its efficiency changes depending on the performance of the electrocatalyst.…”

Editorial: Emerging Technologies for Materials Design and Characterization in Energy Conversion and Storage

“…In conclusion, the development of advanced materials and technologies for energy conversion and storage are of vital importance. Until now, various promising materials with excellent performance have been prepared, such as carbon nanomaterials [nanofibers (Zhao et al, 2018;Lee et al, 2020), nanotubes (Ma et al, 2019;Sun et al, 2020;Tuo et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2020), graphene (Chen et al, 2020), etc. ], reticular structure [metal-organic framework (Nam et al, 2018), covalent organic framework (Lin et al, 2015)], and tandem catalyst (Morales-Guio et al, 2018), etc.…”