Te-Doped Pd Nanocrystal for Electrochemical Urea Production by Efficiently Coupling Carbon Dioxide Reduction with Nitrite Reduction

Yonggang Feng; Hao Yang; Ying Zhang; Xiaoqing Huang; Leigang Li; Tao Cheng; Qi Shao

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c03400

Te-Doped Pd Nanocrystal for Electrochemical Urea Production by Efficiently Coupling Carbon Dioxide Reduction with Nitrite Reduction

Nano Lett. 2020 Nov 11;20(11):8282-8289. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c03400. Epub 2020 Oct 14.

Authors

Yonggang Feng^{1

2}, Hao Yang³, Ying Zhang¹, Xiaoqing Huang^{1

2}, Leigang Li², Tao Cheng³, Qi Shao^{2

4}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China.
² College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Jiangsu 215123, China.
³ Institute of Functional Nano&Soft Materials (FUNSOM), Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Carbon-Based Functional Materials and Devices, Soochow University, Jiangsu 215123, China.
⁴ Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Energy Materials for Electric Power, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China.

PMID: 33172281
DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c03400

Abstract

The renewable electricity-driven reduction of carbon dioxide (CO₂RR) is a promising technology for carbon utilization. However, it is still a challenge to broaden the application of CO₂RR. Herein, we report a Te-doped Pd nanocrystals (Te-Pd NCs) for promoting urea synthesis by coupling CO₂RR with electrochemical reduction of nitrite. The electrochemical synthesis of urea has been achieved with nearly 12.2% Faraday efficiency (FE) and 88.7% N atom efficiency (NE) at -1.1 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (vs RHE), much higher than those of pure Pd NCs (4.2% FE and 21.8% NE). Significantly, an FE of ∼10.2% and an NE of ∼82.3% for urea solution production via an optimized flow cell system have been realized, where a solution with up to 0.95 wt % of urea has been obtained. Mechanistic insights show that Te-doping not only optimizes the CO₂/CO adsorption but also promotes NH₃ production, fully meeting the requirements of urea synthesis.

Keywords: CO2 electroreduction; Coupling; Palladium; Tellurium; Urea production.