Surface vacancy engineering holds great promise for boosting the electrocatalytic activity for CO2 reduction reaction; however, the vacancies are generally unstable and may degrade into the inactive phase during electrolysis.… Click to show full abstract
Surface vacancy engineering holds great promise for boosting the electrocatalytic activity for CO2 reduction reaction; however, the vacancies are generally unstable and may degrade into the inactive phase during electrolysis. Stabilizing the vacancy-enriched structure by heteroatoms can be an effective strategy to get a robust and active catalyst. Herein, a nitrogen-vacancy enriched Nb4 N5 on N-doped carbons is constructed, which is thereafter stabilized by a self-enhanced oxygen doping process. This oxygen-doped complex is used as an effective CO2 catalyst, which exhibits a maximum CO Faradaic efficiency of 91% at -0.8 V (vs reversible hydrogen electrode, RHE) and long-term stability throughout 30 h of electrocatalysis. Density function theory calculations suggest that the incorporation of oxygen in Nb4 N5 facilitates the formation of *COOH and thus promotes the CO2 reduction.
               
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