Hierarchically porous N-doped carbon confined single-atom Fe catalyst for efficient electrochemical CO 2 reduction

作者：Guanghuan Ma, Yang Chen, Hui Li, Ying Sun, Hua Fan, Shuoshuo Jiang, Xin Cui, Tianyi Ma · 发表于：Nano Research · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.26599/nr.2025.94907297 · 被引用次数：20 · 研究领域：CO2 Reduction Techniques and Catalysts、Electrocatalysts for Energy Conversion、Catalytic Processes in Materials Science

Electrochemical CO 2 reduction reaction (CO 2 RR) is a promising process for reducing CO 2 emissions and producing high-value chemicals. However, this process remains hindered by diffusion-limited mass transfer, low activity, and high overpotentials. Here, we controllably prepared hierarchically porous nitrogen-doped carbon, carbon nanosheets, and carbon nanotubes confined single-atom Fe catalysts for electrochemical CO 2 reduction. The hierarchically porous Fe-N-C (Fe-HP) exhibited prominent performance with a Faradaic efficiency of CO (FE CO ) up to 80% and a CO partial current density ( j CO ) of −5.2 mA·cm −2 at −0.5 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE), far outperforming the single-atom Fe on N-C nanosheets (Fe-NS) and N-C nanotubes (Fe-NT). The detailed characterizations and kinetic analysis revealed that the hierarchically porous structure accelerated the mass transfer and electron transfer processes toward single-atom Fe sites, promoting the desorption of CO and thereby enhancing CO 2 reduction efficiency. This study provides a promising approach to designing efficient single-atom catalysts with porous structures for energy conversion applications.