Synergistic Cu/CeO2 carbon nanofiber catalysts for efficient CO2 electroreduction

Abstract

The electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2RR) has attracted enormous interest because of the energy crisis and climate change; however, more efficient catalysts are required for practical applications. Herein, we present electrospinning as a facile strategy to synthesize a three-dimensional network of carbon nanofibers embedded with Cu and CeOx nanoparticles (Cu/CeOx@CNFs) as a CO2RR catalyst. The Cu–CeOx interface produced using this method offers synergistic geometric and electronic effects which optimize the adsorption strength of reaction intermediates for the electroreduction of CO2 to CO. In a flow cell configuration, a current density of 100 mA cm−2 and a CO faradaic efficiency of 59.2% can be obtained at −0.60 V vs. RHE. Keywords: Copper, Ceria, Electrospinning, CO2 electroreduction, Flow cell