Understanding Selective Reduction of CO 2 to CO on Modified Carbon Electrocatalysts

Abstract Modified carbon powders are attractive electrocatalysts for chemical conversion due to their low cost and high activity. Here, we demonstrate that electrochemical conversion activities of CO 2 to CO in aqueous media are enhanced by the incorporation of transition metals into nitrogen‐doped carbon (M−N/C; M=Fe, Co, Cu). The type of the metals is thereby critical to achieve selective CO production over H 2 . Among M−N/C and N/C catalysts, Fe−N/C exhibited the highest faradaic efficiency for CO conversion, significantly enhanced compared with the metal‐free N‐doped carbon electrocatalyst. In addition, the catalysts containing higher pyridinic N and graphitic N but lower pyrrolic N contents favor CO production at lower bias potentials. Meanwhile, the total amount of N content in the carbon material is less important. Our CO 2 reduction reaction results combined with X‐ray photoelect…