Cyclic voltammetry (CV) test with Ru-GDYS and GDYS cathode between at a scan rate of 0.1 mV/s are conducted (
Fig. 3a). Compared with GDYS, it is observed that the Ru-GDYS based battery has strong anodic peak properly around 2.36 V corresponding to the CO
2 evolution reaction, and cathodic peak around 4.18 V, concerned in CO
2 reduction process. As shown in
Fig. 3b, the Ru-GDYS cathode delivers an ultrahigh discharge capacity of 15,030 mAh/g at 500 mA/g, distinctly exceeding GDYS cathode (11,016 mAh/g). Additionally, a reversible charged capacity of Ru-GDYS (14,668 mAh/g) is gained with a splendid coulombic efficiency of 97.6%, manifesting that a majority of discharged products are decomposed during the charging process. On the contrary, pure GDYS cathode displays low reversible capacity and poor coulombic efficiency. The result further affirms the superiority of Ru nanoparticles combined with GDYS. The rate performance tests are exhibited in
Fig. 3c and Fig. S9 (Supporting information). The discharge capacity of the Ru-GDYS cathode mildly declines to 13,382 mAh/g at 1000 mA/g, nevertheless, the capacity of GDYS drops quickly (7981 mAh/g). Under 1500 mA/g, the discharge capacity of Ru-GDYS (10,720 mAh/g) is more than twice that of GDYS cathode (4523 mAh/g). Unexpectedly, the Ru-GDYS cathode remains a significant discharged capacity of 8873 mAh/g at 2000 mA/g. On the contrary, the capacity based on GDYS cathode has reduced to 2709 mAh/g. The data confirms the superior rate performance with great CO
2RR/CO
2ER activities of Li–CO
2 batteries using Ru-GDYS electrode. The Ru-GDYS cathode is capable of operating over 120 cycles and stays steady at 500 mA/g with a curtailing capacity of 1000 mAh/g (
Fig. 3d). At the same time, the voltage gap (△
V) is around 1.42 V at the 50
th cycle. Although the voltage gap shows a mild increase after 120
th cycle, it is still below within 1.67 V, which may be attributed to the synergy of excellent activity of Ru and the optimized development route invited by GDYS of discharge products [
49]. In contrast, under the same conditions, the Li–CO
2 battery with GDYS cathode only works 80 cycles with large polarization (△
V = 2.38 V) (
Fig. 3e). To acquire deep insight into the catalytic activity and superiority of the well-dispersed Ru nanoparticles, we further compare the first cycled curves of different electrodes (
Fig. 3f). It is important that the charge voltage plateaus of the Ru-GDYS cathode (3.61 V) is considerably lower than that of GDYS cathode (4.77 V) and the initial discharge/charge voltage gap is remarkably declined to 1.11 V, demonstrating the Ru nanoparticles of the Ru-GDYS composite possess superior competency for boosting CO
2 reduction reaction. Interestingly, commercial graphene (COMG) cathode also shows a short cycling life-span of merely 75 loops, lower than GDYS under the same condition (Fig. S10 in Supporting information), highlighting that the carbon carrier of GDYS has better activity and stability. Moreover, according to the comparison of their corresponding terminal potentials-cycle number profiles in
Fig. 3g, the difference of the terminal voltages of the Ru-GDYS involved Li–CO
2 cells on the average is around 1.42 V. It is much smaller than that of GDYS during a long roundtrip (> 120 cycles), featuring a prominent cycling reliability. Unfortunately, battery with GDYS electrode suffers from great losses of polarization with high CO
2ER terminal voltage and CO
2RR terminal potential rapidly dropping below 2.0 V at 80
th cycles.