Low-loading gold in situ doped with sulfur by biomolecule-assisted approach for promoted electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction

For electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction(CO_(2)RR),CO_(2)-to-CO conversion is considered an ideal route towards carbon neutrality for practical applications.Gold(Au)is known as a promising catalyst with high selectivity for CO;however,it suffers from high cost and low mass-specific activity.In this study,we design and prepare a catalyst featuring uniform S-doped Au nanoparticles on N-doped carbon support(denoted as S-Au/NC)by an in situ synthesis strategy using biomolecules.The S-Au/NC displays high activity and selectivity for CO in CO_(2)RR with a Au loading as low as 0.4 wt.%.The Faradaic efficiency of CO(FECO)for S-Au/NC is above 95%at−0.75 V(vs.RHE);by contrast,the FECO of Au/NC(without S)is only 58%.The Tafel slope is 77.4 mV·dec−1,revealing a favorable kinetics process.Furthermore,S-Au/NC exhibits an excellent long-term stability for CO_(2)RR.Density functional theory(DFT)calculations reveal that the S dopant can boost the activity by reducing the free energy change of the potential-limiting step(formation of the*COOH intermediate).This work not only demonstrates a model catalyst featuring significantly reduced use of noble metals,but also establishes an in situ synthesis strategy for preparing high-performance catalysts.