Effectively increased efficiency for electroreduction of carbon monoxide using supported polycrystalline copper powder electrocatalysts
Jing Li, Kuan Chang, Haochen Zhang, Ming He, William A. Goddard III, Jingguang G. Chen, Mu-Jeng Cheng, Qi Lu
Abstract
Many electrocatalysts can efficiently convert CO_2 to CO. However, the further conversion of CO to higher-value products was hindered by the low activity of the CO reduction reaction and the consequent lack of mechanistic insights for designing better catalysts. A flow-type reactor could potentially improve the reaction rate of CO reduction. However, the currently available configurations would pose great challenges in reaction mechanism understanding due to their complex nature and/or lack of precise potential control. Here we report, in a standard electrochemical cell with a three-electrode setup, a supported bulk polycrystalline copper powder electrode reduces CO to hydrocarbons and multicarbon oxygenates with dramatically increased activities of more than 100 mA cm^(–2) and selectivities of more than 80%. The high activity and selectivity that was achieved demonstrates the practical feasibility of electrochemical CO or CO_2 (with a tandem strategy) conversion and enables the experimental exploration of the CO reduction mechanism to further reduced products.
Group Members
Li, J., Chang, K., Zhang, H., He, M., III, W. A. G., Chen, J. G., Cheng, M., & Lu, Q. (2019). Effectively increased efficiency for electroreduction of carbon monoxide using supported polycrystalline copper powder electrocatalysts. *ACS Catalysis*, *9*(6), 4709-4718. https://doi.org/10.1021/acscatal.9b00099