Abstract:
To address CO
2 emissions caused by excessive fossil fuel consumption, a novel Ni-N co-doped biomass-derived carbon catalyst (Ni-NBC-800) is developed using agricultural waste corn stalks, aiming to achieve electrochemical CO
2 reduction (CO
2 Reduction Reaction, CO
2RR) for synthesizing syngas (CO/H
2) with tunable ratios and promote CO
2 resource utilization. A NH
4Cl-assisted pore-forming strategy combined with nickel impregnation and high-temperature pyrolysis is employed to construct a composite catalyst featuring hierarchical porous structures and metal-nitrogen active sites. Experimental results demonstrate that with the optimized mass fraction of the load Ni (2%) and calcination temperature (800 ℃), the catalyst achieved a CO Faradaic efficiency of 72.8% at –0.8 V, while the molar ratio of CO to H
2 can be continuously adjusted within the range of 0.75 to 3.15 through potential regulation, meeting downstream syngas process requirements. Compared with commercial activated carbon-based catalyst (Ni-NAC-800), Ni-NBC-800 exhibited superior CO partial current density (–4.75 mA/cm
2) and stability (the 24-hour current retention rate of 90.3%). Characterization analyses revealed that the hierarchical porous structure formed by NH
3/HCl gas synergistic etching during NH
4Cl pyrolysis significantly enhanced reactant mass transfer and catalytic activity. This work not only validates the feasibility of agricultural waste-derived carbon materials as alternatives to commercial carbon supports, but also provides a new strategy for low-cost and tunable syngas electrosynthesis through metal-support synergistic design.