The accelerated depletion of fossil fuel resources leads to rising level of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere, which has been cited as a major contributor to the global warming. Electrochemical reduction of CO2 to fuels or chemicals is an attractive solution to prevent CO2 accumulation in atmosphere, but it remains a great challenge to develop the cost-effective catalysts. Herein, we synthesized oxide-derived Cu/carbon catalysts by a facile carbonization of metal-organic framework. The resulting materials exhibited the best selectivity for methanol at -1.4 V (vs SCE) with the faradic efficiencies (FE) of 73% and the methanol product generation rate reaching 3134 nmol h-1 cm-2. The improvements in activity and selectivity of the oxide-derived Cu/carbon might be attributed to the synergistic effect between a high dispersed copper and a matrix of porous carbon. These findings provide a promising lead for the development of practical catalysts for decreasing atmospheric CO2 levels and synthesizing liquid fuels.

Metal organic framework-mediated synthesis of oxide-derived Cu/carbons for the electrochemical reduction of CO2

251st National Meeting (2016)

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