Facile Synthesis of Fe@C Loaded on g-C3N4 for CO2 Electrochemical Reduction to CO with Low Overpotential.

Electrochemical CO2 reduction has been acknowledged as a hopeful tactic to alleviate environmental and global energy crises. Herein, we designed an Fe@C/g-C3N4 heterogeneous nanocomposite material by a simple one-pot method, which we applied to the electrocatalytic CO2 reduction reaction (ECR). Our optimized 20 mg-Fe@C/g-C3N4-1100 catalyst displays excellent performance for the ECR and a maximum Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 88% with a low overpotential of -0.38 V vs. RHE. The Tafel slope reveals that the first electron transfer, which involves a surface-adsorbed *COOH intermediate, is the rate-determining step for 20 mg-Fe@C/C3N4-1100 during the ECR. More precisely, the coordinating capability of the g-C3N4 framework and Fe@C species as a highly active site promote the intermediate product transmission. These results indicate that the combination of temperature adjustment and precursor optimization is key to facilitating the ECR of an iron-based catalyst.