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.
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