Recently, Professor He Chuanxin and his research group from the School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Shenzhen University published a research article entitled “Carbon Dioxide Electroreduction on Single-Atom Nickel Decorated Carbon Membranes with Industry Compatible Current Densities” in Nature Communications.Yang Hengpan, an Assistant Professor from the research group, is the first author of the paper. ProfessorHe Chuanxin is the only corresponding author.
In the paper,He’s groupreport the synthesis of a self-supported Ni single-atom/porous carbonfiber membrane(NiSA/PCFM) via electrospinning method forCO2 electro-reduction. The massive single-atom Ni atoms distributing throughout carbon nanofiber played a crucial part inCO2 electro-reduction. The cross-linking and porous carbon nanofibers of NiSA/PCFM providedabundant channels formass transfer and electron transport. NiSA/PCFM membrane also has favorable mechanical strength and flexibility, which can be easily tailored to specific shapes or thickness. Hence, NiSA/PCFM membrane could combine gas-diffusion layers and catalyst layers into one structure. This integrated NiSA/PCFM membrane was directly utilized as a gas-diffusion electrode for aqueous CO2 reduction, avoiding the weak contact between the gas-diffusion layers and catalyst layers.NiSA/PCFMmembrane was demonstrated tobring forth CO product with ~300 mA cm–2 partial current density and ~88% faradaic efficiency for up to 120 hours at–1.0 VRHE. These hierarchically porous, crosslinking and free-standing carbon membranes can be ideal choice for the carrier of various active sites for CO2 reduction. Furtherly, the excellentmechanical and chemical properties of these carbon membranes might alsoprovide some new solution and useful recommendations for the design of CO2 reduction catalysts at the potential industrial scale.
The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Science and Technology Innovation Commission of Shenzhen.
Link to the paper,https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-14402-0
