Electrochemical reduction of CO2 to CO on bimetallic CoCu–N–C catalyst

Electrochemical reduction of CO2 to valuable chemicals using electricity from renewable sources is a promising approach to realize the carbon cycle. Here, a novel bimetallic nitrogen-doped carbon catalyst (M-N-C, where M denotes the metal) CoCu–N–C electrocatalyst has been synthesized by pyrolyzing a copper-doped cobalt(II) acetate–phenanthroline complex formed from the metal acetates and 1,10-phenanthroline dissolved in ethanol. The optimal CoCu–N–C catalyst with molar ratio of Cu/(Co + Cu) = 0.15 displayed superior performance, enabling a faradaic efficiency of CO production of 76.5% at an overpotential of 0.57 V as well as an increased CO current density of 8.48 mA cm−2 at −0.98 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (far superior than the Co–N–C of 4.20 mA cm−2 and Cu–N–C of 0.07 mA cm−2) and a decreased charge-transfer resistance compared with Co–N–C and Cu–N–C catalysts. The addition of Cu, which serves as a structure promoter to improve the dispersion of Co, thereby providing sufficient Co-Nx active sites for the electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CRR). Moreover, doping Cu changes the electronic environment around Co slightly and promotes the charge transfer capability so that reduces the energy barrier of potential-limiting energy, thereby improving the CRR performance of catalyst.