Boron, nitrogen co-doped carbon with abundant mesopores for efficient CO2 electroreduction

[Display omitted] •Developing a low-cost and efficient electrocatalyst for CO2 reduction.•B, N codoping effect and porous structure attributes in catalysis.•Achieving a high FE of 95 % towards CO at low overpotential of 423 mV.•The doped carbon structure with the N or B dopant is key for CO2 reduction.•Providing the chemical nature of the CO2 reduction on the catalyst. Efficient and cost-effective electrocatalysts for CO2 reduction with high selectivity are desirable but remain challenging. Herein, a low-cost and efficient electrocatalyst composed of boron, nitrogen co-doped mesoporous carbon (BNMC) for CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) along with the catalytic mechanism are reported. The resultant BNMC (i.e., BNMC-1000) exhibits good CO2RR activity with high Faradaic efficiency (FE, 95%) towards CO at low overpotential (423 mV). It is demonstrated that the codoping of nitrogen and boron atom, and the mesopore structure are favorable to the excellent catalytic activity of CO2RR. The doped boron atom cooperate with nitrogen atom could adjust the projected density of states of the carbon active site generating a proper adsorbed energy of *COOH and *CO on the carbon surface. This work offers a basic guide for developing metal-free carbon-based CO2RR electrocatalysts with high-performance.