Synthesis of Cu-g-C3N4/MoS2 composite as a catalyst for electrochemical CO2 reduction to alcohols

Abstract

Designing a vastly effective and stable electrocatalyst for accelerating CO2 reduction is presented and discussed. Herein, we report a Cu-based composite material comprising of g-C3N4, MoS2, and copper nanoparticles (Cu NPs) for more efficient electrochemical CO2 reduction. The g-C3N4/MoS2 is used as a support for Cu NPs as part of the novel composite structure (Cu-g-C3N4/MoS2). The material exhibited excellent electrocatalytic activity because of synergistic effect arises from their components. The material also demonstrated higher efficiency in the CO2 reduction compared to other composites such as Cu NPs supported on g-C3N4 (i.e., Cu-g-C3N4) and MoS2(i.e., Cu-MoS2) with reference to superior current density and potential. The synthesized Cu-g-C3N4/MoS2 composite material demonstrated the highest faradaic efficiency of 19.7% and 4.8% for methanol and ethanol, respectively. Electrochemical impedance measurement confirms charge transfer enhancement in Cu-g-C3N4/MoS2 composite material compared to Cu-g-C3N4 and Cu-MoS2. Chronoamperometric measurement confirms the high stability of the composite material without degradation in the current density up to 30 h.