Post-modification of MOF to fabricate single-atom dispersed hollow nanocages catalysts for enhancing CO2 conversion

Abstract

During the catalytic process, the microenvironment and surface area of the catalyst will affect the catalytic performance. Hence, an assisted organic linker coated metal-organic framework (MOF) has been applied, to form Ni/HNC (HNC represents hollow nanocage) for electrocatalytic CO2 reduction. Remarkably, Ni/HNC achieves superb activity with high Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 97.2% at 0.7 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) towards CO2 conversion to CO. In contrast to Ni/NPC (afforded from the naked MOF), the Ni/HNC displays higher FE and selectivity on CO rather than H2, owing to the large nanocage which extraordinarily facilitates CO2 enrichment and the active sites easily accessible. This work provides a general and feasible route to construct high-efficient electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (EC-CO2RR) catalysts via post-modified MOFs.