Phosphoric acid-etched boron nitride as a single-atom support for boosting CO₂ electroreduction at high current density.
- 1Key Lab of Fluorine and Silicon for Energy Materials and Chemistry of Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Materials, Jiangxi Normal University Nanchang 330022 China [email protected] [email protected] [email protected].
- 2School of Advanced Energy, Sun Yat-Sen University (Shenzhen) Shenzhen 518107 China.
Abstract
Designing adjustable and robust support materials remains a critical challenge for enhancing the industrial-level CO₂ electroreduction performance of single-atom catalysts. Herein, we report a defective and phosphate-modified boron nitride (BN) support via a facile phosphoric acid etching strategy to anchor single nickel atoms. The optimized electrocatalyst delivers an outstanding maximum CO faradaic efficiency of 97.6 ± 1.2% in an H-cell and a large CO partial current density of 148.6 ± 2.3 mA cm⁻² in a gas diffusion electrode-based flow cell and retains high CO selectivity during 87 h of stable operation. A variety of characterization studies including operando spectroscopy combined with theoretical calculations reveal that phosphoric acid etching redistributes the electronic structures of the interface as well as Ni centers, which significantly optimizes the *CO adsorption. Moreover, the surface phosphate species may play a critical role in stabilizing the key *COOH intermediate. This work not only provides a support material for achieving performance gain of transition metal single atoms, but also offers new insights into interfacial molecule-mediated CO₂ electrochemical conversion.
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BibTeX
@article{li2026phosphoric,
title = {{Phosphoric acid-etched boron nitride as a single-atom support for boosting CO₂ electroreduction at high current density.}},
author = {Xuan Li and Yu-Ting Wang and Wei-Zhen Deng and Qian-Run Tan and Hong-Mei Liu and Wen-Juan Huang and Li-Dong Wang and Zi-Xuan Wu and Yuan-Jing Suo and Yan-Tong Xu and Li-Ming Cao and Hai-Hua Huang and Chun-Ting He},
journal = {Chemical science},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1039/d6sc06494a},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42899039},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Phosphoric acid-etched boron nitride as a single-atom support for boosting CO₂ electroreduction at high current density.
AU - Xuan Li
AU - Yu-Ting Wang
AU - Wei-Zhen Deng
AU - Qian-Run Tan
AU - Hong-Mei Liu
AU - Wen-Juan Huang
AU - Li-Dong Wang
AU - Zi-Xuan Wu
AU - Yuan-Jing Suo
AU - Yan-Tong Xu
AU - Li-Ming Cao
AU - Hai-Hua Huang
AU - Chun-Ting He
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/12
JO - Chemical science
DO - 10.1039/d6sc06494a
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42899039
AB - Designing adjustable and robust support materials remains a critical challenge for enhancing the industrial-level CO₂ electroreduction performance of single-atom catalysts. Herein, we report a defective and phosphate-modified boron nitride (BN) support via a facile phosphoric acid etching strategy to anchor single nickel atoms. The optimized electrocatalyst delivers an outstanding maximum CO faradaic efficiency of 97.6 ± 1.2% in an H-cell and a large CO partial current density of 148.6 ± 2.3 mA cm⁻² in a gas diffusion electrode-based flow cell and retains high CO selectivity during 87 h of stable operation. A variety of characterization studies including operando spectroscopy combined with theoretical calculations reveal that phosphoric acid etching redistributes the electronic structures of the interface as well as Ni centers, which significantly optimizes the *CO adsorption. Moreover, the surface phosphate species may play a critical role in stabilizing the key *COOH intermediate. This work not only provides a support material for achieving performance gain of transition metal single atoms, but also offers new insights into interfacial molecule-mediated CO₂ electrochemical conversion.
SN - 2041-6520
SN - 2041-6539
ER -