A Nitrogen-Doped Porous Carbon Supported Copper Catalyst from a Scalable One-Step Method for Efficient Carbon Dioxide Electroreduction

In this work, a scalable one-step glucose blowing method has been used to prepare a porous N-doped carbon supported Cu nanoparticles (Cu-NC) composite catalyst for CO2 electroreduction. This Cu-NC catalyst demonstrates efficient catalytic activity for CO2-to-C1 product (CO and formate) conversion, with a high efficiency of 69 % at an overpotential of 590 mV. The excellent catalytic activity is correlated to the structure of this composite and the N-species (pyridinic and graphitic nitrogen) in the carbonaceous matrix that may promote the CO2 adsorption and subsequent formation of reduction reaction intermediates and products.