Intermediate enrichment effect of porous Cu catalyst for CO2 electroreduction to C2 fuels

Electrochemical carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction reaction (CO2RR) to obtain C2/multi-carbon fuels is an appealing technology to reduce carbon emission and store intermittent renewable electricity. The C–C coupling process, as the most critical step for generating C2/multi-carbon fuels, strongly depend...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Electrochimica acta 2021-08, Vol.388, p.138552, Article 138552
Main Authors: Liu, Bao, Cai, Chao, Yang, Baopeng, Chen, Kejun, Long, Yan, Wang, Qiyou, Wang, Shuandi, Chen, Guozhu, Li, Hongmei, Hu, Junhua, Fu, Junwei, Liu, Min
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adsorption
C2 products
Carbon dioxide
Carbon monoxide
Chemical reduction
CO2 electroreduction
Copper
Coupling
Desorption
Electron microscopy
Emissions control
Enrichment
Fuels
Gas sensors
Intermediates
Microscopy
Nanospheres
Porous structure
Selectivity
Spatial confinement effect
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Summary:Electrochemical carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction reaction (CO2RR) to obtain C2/multi-carbon fuels is an appealing technology to reduce carbon emission and store intermittent renewable electricity. The C–C coupling process, as the most critical step for generating C2/multi-carbon fuels, strongly depends on the concentration of *CO intermediates around the active sites. In this work, we prepared porous copper nanospheres (P-Cu) that greatly improved the C–C coupling process by enriching *CO intermediates in the pore structure. The specific pore features of P-Cu were characterized in detail by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and nitrogen adsorption/desorption tests. Obviously, the P-Cu exhibits higher specific surface area and richer pore structure than the control sample compact copper nanosphere (C-Cu). The CO gas sensor and temperature programmed desorption (TPD) tests prove that the P-Cu has better CO adsorption and enrichment capacity than C-Cu due to the rich pore structure. As a result, P-Cu exhibited a high C2 selectivity with a Faradaic efficiency (FEC2) of 57.22% at −1.3 V (vs. RHE), which is about 2.5-fold than the C-Cu (FEC2 of 22.71%). This work provides an effective strategy to improve the activity and selectivity of C2 products in CO2RR by optimizing the adsorption/enrichment property of intermediates.
ISSN:0013-4686
1873-3859
DOI:10.1016/j.electacta.2021.138552