Wang Ye group and Wu Deyin group of Xiamen University have made important progress in the field of carbon dioxide electrocatalytic reduction to formic acid

Wang Ye group and Wu Deyin group of School of chemistry and chemical engineering of Xiamen University have made important breakthroughs in the field of carbon dioxide electrocatalytic reduction to formic acid The related achievements were published in NAT Commun (DOI: 10.1038 / s41467-019-08805-x) under the title of "promoting electrical CO 2 reduction to form vital boosting water activation on index surfaces" It is of great significance to convert CO 2 electrocatalysis into fuel and chemicals As an important industrial raw material, formic acid has important applications in pharmaceutical, leather and papermaking It can also be used as hydrogen carrier directly in formic acid fuel cell At present, although CO2 electrocatalytic reduction can obtain high Faraday efficiency, its high Faraday efficiency can only be achieved under low activity, and the change of potential or current will significantly affect its Faraday efficiency, which makes it difficult to improve the rate of formic acid formation which is concerned by industry It is generally believed that H 2O reduction and hydrogen evolution is a competitive reaction of CO 2 reduction If H 2O activation is promoted, Faraday efficiency of CO 2 reduction will be reduced Therefore, the catalyst with high Faraday reduction efficiency designed based on this understanding is often of low activity Wang Ye group broke this understanding and proposed that the activation of H 2O molecule plays an important role in the reduction of CO 2 A new method of activating H 2O molecule by sulfur modified in catalyst was successfully developed to promote the reduction of CO 2 to formic acid The catalyst can maintain the Faraday efficiency of formic acid over 85% in a very wide range of current density At 93% Faraday efficiency of formic acid, the formation rate of formic acid can reach 1449 mmol · H - 1 · cm - 2, which breaks through the current limit of the formation rate of formic acid by CO 2 electrocatalytic reduction The promotion mechanism of s on the surface of in catalyst was determined by DFT calculation The results show that it is universal to improve the electrocatalytic reduction of CO 2 by promoting the activation of water This work provides a new strategy for the rational design of efficient CO 2 reduction electrocatalyst The experimental part of the research work is mainly guided by Professor Wang Ye and Professor Zhang Qinghong, and completed by Ma Wenchao, a 2016 level doctoral student of I Chem, and Xie Shunji, a senior engineer of the State Key Laboratory of solid surface physical chemistry (co first author); the theoretical calculation part is guided by Professor Wu Deyin, and Zhang Xiaguang, a 2015 level doctoral student (co first author) complete Kang Jincan, senior engineer of National Engineering Laboratory of alcohol ether ester, participated in some experimental characterization Professor Jiang Zheng and Dr Sun Fanfei provided support for the characterization of synchrotron radiation The research work was supported by key R & D plan of the Ministry of science and Technology (approval No.: 2017yfb0602201) and National Natural Science Foundation (approval No.: 21690082, 91545203, 21503176).