On March 30, the research group led by Prof. Xia Baoyu published a paper entitled "Metal‐Organic Frameworks‐derived Carbon Nanorods Encapsulated Bismuth Oxides for Rapid and Selective CO2 Electroreduction to Formate" on Angewandte Chemie International Edition. Huazhong University of Science and Technology is the only corresponding unit and Prof. Xia Baoyu is the only corresponding author of this paper.
Under the severe global climate crisis triggered by the high level CO2 in the atmosphere, electrochemical CO2 conversion driven by renewable energy (such as solar energy) provides a bright future to solve the sustainable recycling of global carbon resource and simultaneously obtains high-value chemical feedstocks. As an important liquid product of CO2 conversion, the nontoxic formate is easy to stably store and transport, and it has been widely applied in various energy and industrial fields, for instance, hydrogen storage, and fuel cells. However, the ineluctable bottleneck in electrocatalysts leads to the poor selectivity and low efficiency for the production of desired formate, which is mainly attributed to the high overpotential for multi-electron transfer routes, and the competitive hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Therefore, it is immensely significant yet challenging to exploit high-efficiency electrocatalysts for the selective CO2 reduction.
In this work, the research group employs bismuth-based MOFs to achieve the preparation of Bi2O3@C catalyst for high-efficiency CO2 electroreduction. The resultant Bi2O3@C-800 exhibits a small onset potential of -0.28 V vs. RHE, stable FE of 93%, and high partial current density of over 200 mA-2 at -1.1 V vs. RHE for the fast formate production in a flow cell configuration. Electrochemical results demonstrate the Bi2O3@C hybrid synergistically promotes selective and fast CO2 reduction, where the carbon matrix would be helpful for enhancing the activity and current density, while the oxides is beneficial for improving the reaction kinetics and selectivity. This work provides effective Bi-based MOF derivatives for the efficient production of formate and offers valuable insights in promoting the rapid and selective CO2 reduction technology.
This work not only provides efficient Bi-based MOF derivatives for practical CO2 electroreduction to formate, but more importantly, offers the useful perspective in inspiring MOF-derived nanocomposites for selective electrochemical reactions and beyond.
Link of the paper: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/anie.202000657
