Recently, Zeng Jie, a professor at the National Research Center of Hefei Microscale Physical Science and the School of Chemistry and Materials Science at the University of Science and Technology of China, used tin disulfide nanosheets doped with different nickel contents as catalysts to achieve efficient electroreduction of carbon dioxide to formic acid and carbon monoxide. This nickel-doped tin disulfide nanosheet catalyst exhibits high activity and high stability in carbon dioxide electroreduction. The result is Nickel Doping in Atomically Thin Tin Disulfide Nanosheets Enables Highly Efficient CO. 2 The reduction is published on August 15th in the journal German Applied Chemistry (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2018, 57, 10954-10958). The co-first author of the paper is Master Zhang An, Ph.D. He and graduate student Li Huiping.
In the carbon dioxide electroreduction reaction, CO 2Molecular activation has always been CO 2Difficulties in the study of electrocatalytic reduction reactions. Because in standard cases, CO 2Molecules are activated into CO in aqueous solution 2- The standard electrode potential required for anion is relative standard hydrogen - 1.9 V vs RHE. Normally, CO 2Activation of molecules involves the transfer of electrons from the catalyst to the CO 2Molecules, and this process is closely related to the electronic structure of the catalyst. Therefore, CO can be achieved by adjusting the electronic structure of the catalyst. 2Efficient activation of molecules.
Based on this philosophy, the researchers used two layers of atomic thick SnS. 2Based on the nanosheets, different nickel-doped SnS2 nanosheet catalysts were obtained by adjusting the content of nickel introduced. The suitable nickel content of SnS2 nanosheet catalyst realized CO 2Efficient activation of molecules to enhance CO 2Electrocatalytic reduction performance. In CO 25% Ni-doped SnS in electrocatalytic reduction 2Nanosheets at -0.9 V vs RHE, CO 2The Faraday efficiency of reduction to an effective carbon product is as high as 93%, and the current density reaches -19.6 mA/cm2. Mechanism studies further indicate that nickel doping will produce a defect state at the position where SnS2 is close to the conduction band, and its work function will also decrease. An effect helps to achieve CO 2Efficient activation to enhance CO 2The performance of electroreduction reaction. This work not only prepared high-efficiency nickel-doped SnS2 nanosheets as carbon dioxide electroreduction catalysts, but also provided a method for rational design of electrocatalysts.
The research was funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Frontier Science Key Research Project, the National Major Scientific Research Program, and the National Natural Science Foundation.
Nickel-doped tin disulfide nanosheets and electrical reduction of carbon dioxide
