Post-modification of MOF to fabricate single-atom dispersed hollow nanocages catalysts for enhancing CO₂ conversion

During the catalytic process, the microenvironment and surface area of the catalyst will affect the catalytic performance. Hence, an assisted organic linker coated metal-organic framework (MOF) has been applied, to form Ni/HNC (HNC represents hollow nanocage) for electrocatalytic CO₂ reduction. Remarkably, Ni/HNC achieves superb activity with high Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 97.2% at 0.7 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) towards CO₂ conversion to CO. In contrast to Ni/NPC (afforded from the naked MOF), the Ni/HNC displays higher FE and selectivity on CO rather than H₂, owing to the large nanocage which extraordinarily facilitates CO₂ enrichment and the active sites easily accessible. This work provides a general and feasible route to construct high-efficient electrochemical CO₂ reduction reaction (EC-CO₂RR) catalysts via post-modified MOFs.