Fe nanoparticles embedded in N-doped porous carbon for enhanced electrocatalytic CO2 reduction and Zn-CO2 battery

The selective electrochemical reduction of CO2 to CO is a promising solution for the design carbon-neutral, sustainable processes. Achieving highly single product still challenging because energetically favorable competing hydrogen evolution reaction. We report fabrication N-doped sponge-like porous graphitic carbon structures embedded with Fe nanoparticles ([email protected]) via pre-modification metal-organic framework (IRMOF-3(Zn)) carboxyferrocene, followed by pyrolysis. as-prepared [email protected] exhibited 96.4% Faradaic efficiency at –0.5 VRHE and good stability. exceptional performance attributed unique structure composite catalyst, which provides abundant hierarchical pores that increase adsorption mass transfer, active sites synergistically accelerate kinetics generation. in situ attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared analysis provided proof improved ability accumulate crucial intermediate *COOH compared other pyrolyzed carbons. was used Zn-CO2 battery delivered maximum power density 3.0 mW cm–2, evidencing its potential application energy-converting devices.