Highly active and stable stepped Cu surface for enhanced electrochemical CO₂ reduction to C₂H₄
Chungseok Choi, Soonho Kwon, Tao Cheng, Mingjie Xu, Peter Tieu, Changsoo Lee, Jin Cai, Hyuck Mo Lee, Xiaoqing Pan, Xiangfeng Duan, William A. Goddard III, Yu Huang
Abstract
Electrochemical CO₂ reduction to value-added chemical feedstocks is of considerable interest for renewable energy storage and renewable source generation while mitigating CO₂ emissions from human activity. Copper represents an effective catalyst in reducing CO₂ to hydrocarbons or oxygenates, but it is often plagued by a low product selectivity and limited long-term stability. Here we report that copper nanowires with rich surface steps exhibit a remarkably high Faradaic efficiency for C₂H₄ that can be maintained for over 200 hours. Computational studies reveal that these steps are thermodynamically favoured compared with Cu(100) surface under the operating conditions and the stepped surface favours C₂ products by suppressing the C₁ pathway and hydrogen production.
Group Members
Choi, C., Kwon, S., Cheng, T., Xu, M., Tieu, P., Lee, C., Cai, J., Lee, H. M., Pan, X., Duan, X., III, W. A. G., & Huang, Y. (2020). Highly active and stable stepped Cu surface for enhanced electrochemical CO₂ reduction to C₂H₄. *Nature Catalysis*, *3*(10), 804-812. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-020-00504-x