Boosting Energy Efficiency and Stability of Li-CO 2 Batteries via Synergy between Ru Atom Clusters and Single-Atom Ru-N 4 sites in the Electrocatalyst Cathode.

The Li-CO 2 battery is a novel strategy for CO 2 capture and energy-storage applications. However, the sluggish CO 2 reduction and evolution reactions cause large overpotential and poor cycling performance. Herein, a new catalyst containing well-defined ruthenium (Ru) atomic clusters (Ru AC ) and single-atom Ru-N 4 (Ru SA ) composite sites on carbon nanobox substrate (Ru AC+SA @NCB) (NCB = nitrogen-doped carbon nanobox) is fabricated by utilizing the different complexation effects between the Ru cation and the amine group (NH 2 ) on carbon quantum dots or nitrogen moieties on NCB. Systematic experimental and theoretical investigations demonstrate the vital role of electronic synergy between Ru AC and Ru-N 4 in improving the electrocatalytic activity toward the CO 2 evolution reaction (CO 2 ER) and CO 2 reduction reaction (CO 2 RR). The electronic properties of the Ru-N 4 sites are essentially modulated by the adjacent Ru AC species, which optimizes the interactions with key reaction intermediates thereby reducing the energy barriers in the rate-determining steps of the CO 2 RR and CO 2 ER. Remarkably, the Ru AC+SA @NCB-based cell displays unprecedented overpotentials as low as 1.65 and 1.86 V at ultrahigh rates of 1 and 2 A g -1 , and twofold cycling lifespan than the baselines. The findings provide a novel strategy to construct catalysts with composite active sites comprising multiple atom assemblies for high-performance metal-CO 2 batteries.