CO₂ Conversion into N-Doped Carbon Nanomesh Sheets

A new type of ultrathin N-doped carbon nanomesh (NCM) sheet derived from CO2 is prepared via a self-sustained sol-pyrolysis approach, which offers great promise for conversion of emitted CO2 to value-added chemicals in large scale. The newly prepared NCM products, having well-formed two- to four-atom-thick sheet structure, good nitrogen doping level (2.88 at%), high specific surface area (888 m2 g–1), and large hierarchical pores volume (2.05 cm3 g–1), possess superior half-wave potential (0.81 V vs RHE), kinetic limiting current (4.0 mA cm–2), tolerance to methanol crossover effect, and stability against O2 reduction reaction in alkaline medium in fuel cells. More importantly, this general sol-pyrolysis approach greatly enhances reaction controllability and product selectivity for the thermochemical reduction of CO2, thus increasing the application potential of this methodology in both research laboratories and industries.