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Synergistic enhancement of electrocatalytic CO2 reduction to C2 oxygenates at nitrogen-doped nanodiamonds/Cu interface

Nature Nanotechnology volume 15, pages 131–137 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

To date, effective control over the electrochemical reduction of CO2 to multicarbon products (C ≥ 2) has been very challenging. Here, we report a design principle for the creation of a selective yet robust catalytic interface for heterogeneous electrocatalysts in the reduction of CO2 to C2 oxygenates, demonstrated by rational tuning of an assembly of nitrogen-doped nanodiamonds and copper nanoparticles. The catalyst exhibits a Faradaic efficiency of ~63% towards C2 oxygenates at applied potentials of only −0.5 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode. Moreover, this catalyst shows an unprecedented persistent catalytic performance up to 120 h, with steady current and only 19% activity decay. Density functional theory calculations show that CO binding is strengthened at the copper/nanodiamond interface, suppressing CO desorption and promoting C2 production by lowering the apparent barrier for CO dimerization. The inherent compositional and electronic tunability of the catalyst assembly offers an unrivalled degree of control over the catalytic interface, and thereby the reaction energetics and kinetics.

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Fig. 1: Preparation of composite materials.
Fig. 2: Structural, configurational and electrochemical characterization of ND and N-ND electrode materials.
Fig. 3: Structural, configurational and electrochemical characterization of N-ND/Cu electrode materials.
Fig. 4: DFT calculations.

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The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was initiated by the support of the Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division, under contract no. DE-AC02-76SF00515. Theoretical calculations were supported through the Office of Science of the US Department of Energy under award no. DE-SC0004993 and Office of Science of the US Department of Energy under contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231. H.W. acknowledges funding support from the National Postdoctoral Program for Innovative Talents (grant no. BX201600011). Y.T. acknowledges support by grant no. 4309 from the Moore Foundation. T. T. acknowledges the support from National Nature Science Foundation of China (grant no. 21436002 and U1663227). We acknowledge Stanford Nano Shares Facilities for sample preparation and characterization. We acknowledge C. Zhu from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for his help in GIWAXS characterization. Use of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Light Source, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, is supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under contract no. DE-AC02-76SF00515.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Hongxia Wang, Yan-Kai Tzeng, Yongfei Ji.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Hongxia Wang, Yanbin Li, Jun Li, Xueli Zheng, Ankun Yang, Yayuan Liu, Yongji Gong, Lili Cai, Yuzhang Li, Xiaokun Zhang, Wei Chen, Bofei Liu, Nicholas A. Melosh & Yi Cui

  2. Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, China

    Hongxia Wang & Tianwei Tan

  3. Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Yan-Kai Tzeng, Haiyu Lu, Zhi-Xun Shen & Steven Chu

  4. SUNCAT Center for Interface Science and Catalysis, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA, USA

    Yongfei Ji & Karen Chan

  5. Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA, USA

    Nicholas A. Melosh, Zhi-Xun Shen & Yi Cui

  6. National Energy R&D Center for Biorefinery, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, China

    Tianwei Tan

  7. Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Steven Chu

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Contributions

H.W., Y.-K.T., S.C. and Y.C. conceived the research. H.W. and Y.-K.T. carried out the synthesis and performed materials characterization and electrochemical measurements. Y.Li, J.L., X.Zheng, A.Y., Y.Liu, Y.G., L.C., Yu.Li, X.Zhang, W.C., B.L., H.L., N.A.M. and Z.-X.S. assisted in the synthesis and characterization of materials. Y.J. and K.C. carried out the theoretical calculation. H.W., Y.-K.T., Y.J., K.C. and Y.C. analysed the data. H.W., Y.-K.T., Y.J., K.C., T.T., S.C. and Y.C. wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Karen Chan, Tianwei Tan, Steven Chu or Yi Cui.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–28, Tables 1–3 and refs. 1–27.

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Wang, H., Tzeng, YK., Ji, Y. et al. Synergistic enhancement of electrocatalytic CO2 reduction to C2 oxygenates at nitrogen-doped nanodiamonds/Cu interface. Nat. Nanotechnol. 15, 131–137 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-019-0603-y

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