Preparation And Characterization Of Defective C₆₀ And Study On Electrocatalytic CO₂ Reduction

One of the main factors affecting the greenhouse effect that the earth is facing is the annual increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,which greatly affects the balance between climate and natural ecology.Therefore,converting carbon dioxide into renewable fuels through clean and economical chemical methods has become a matter of great concern to scientists.Electrocatalytic carbon dioxide conversion is a promising carbon cycling approach.The use of renewable electricity to drive the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide to obtain high value-added chemical fuels can not only solve the excessive emission of carbon dioxide,but also can directly convert intermittent electric energy into chemical energy,control carbon balance,optimize the structure of energy consumption and other important significance.In recent years,some progress has been made in the study of various key scientific issues such as electrocatalysts for the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide.Carbon-based metal-free catalysts have been widely used in electrochemical carbon dioxide（CO₂）reduction（ECR）due to their advantages of low cost,environmental protection,carbon monoxide friendly and high selectivity.Recently,defective carbon-based nanomaterials have attracted extensive attention due to the unbalanced electron distribution and electronic structural distortion caused by the defects on the carbon materials.Here,report a significant performance improvement induced by a combination of heating and plasma treatment of C₆₀ during ECR.Among them,in the plasma treatment,the purpose is to form defect sites on the C₆₀ surface to promote the formation of various carbon fragments,possibly accompanied by doping heteroatoms.During heat treatment,it is intended to accelerate structural evolution,including the doping of heteroatoms,so that the final structure is consolidated.Electrochemical measurements showed that the Faraday efficiency（FE）for producing CO remained above 80%and reached 96.8%in the wide potential range from-0.4 V to-0.7 V（vs.RHE）.Physical characterization shows that the fragmentation of C₆₀ occurs simultaneously with N/O doping,both of which can cause changes in the electronic structure,leading to the formation of^*COOH intermediates,and ultimately leading to optimal activity and selectivity for CO production.This approach can also be applied to other carbon materials,such as single-walled carbon nanotubes,to improve their ECR activity and selectivity.