Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Carbon-Based Functional Materials & Devices, Institute of Functional Nano & Soft Materials (FUNSOM), Soochow University, 199 Ren'ai Road, Suzhou, 215123, Jiangsu, China.
Institute of Materials Engineering, University of Siegen, 57076, Siegen, Germany.
Nat Commun. 2017 Nov 28;8(1):1828. doi: 10.1038/s41467-017-01893-7.
Syngas, a CO and H mixture mostly generated from non-renewable fossil fuels, is an essential feedstock for production of liquid fuels. Electrochemical reduction of CO and H/HO is an alternative renewable route to produce syngas. Here we introduce the concept of coupling a hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalyst with a CDots/CN composite (a CO reduction catalyst) to achieve a cheap, stable, selective and efficient route for tunable syngas production. CoO, MoS, Au and Pt serve as the HER component. The CoO-CDots-CN electrocatalyst is found to be the most efficient among the combinations studied. The H/CO ratio of the produced syngas is tunable from 0.07:1 to 4:1 by controlling the potential. This catalyst is highly stable for syngas generation (over 100 h) with no other products besides CO and H. Insight into the mechanisms balancing between CO reduction and H evolution when applying the HER-CDots-CN catalyst concept is provided.
合成气是一种主要由不可再生化石燃料产生的 CO 和 H 混合物，是生产液体燃料的重要原料。电化学还原 CO 和 H/HO 是生产合成气的一种替代可再生途径。在这里，我们引入了将析氢反应 (HER) 催化剂与 CDots/CN 复合材料（CO 还原催化剂）耦合的概念，以实现一种廉价、稳定、选择性和高效的可调谐合成气生产途径。CoO、MoS、Au 和 Pt 用作 HER 组件。研究发现，在研究的组合中，CoO-CDots-CN 电催化剂的效率最高。通过控制电势，可以将产生的合成气的 H/CO 比从 0.07:1 调至 4:1。该催化剂在生成合成气方面具有很高的稳定性（超过 100 小时），除了 CO 和 H 之外没有其他产物。提供了在应用 HER-CDots-CN 催化剂概念时平衡 CO 还原和 H 演化之间的机制的深入了解。
