Regulating Interfacial Hydrogen‐Bonding Networks by Implanting Cu Sites with Perfluorooctane to Accelerate CO<sub>2</sub> Electroreduction to Ethanol
Efficient CO<sub>2</sub> electroreduction (CO<sub>2</sub>RR) to ethanol holds promise to generate value-added chemicals and harness renewable energy simultaneously. Yet, it remains an ongoing challenge due to the competition with thermodynamically more preferred ethylene production. Herein, we presented a CO<sub>2</sub> reduction predilection switch from ethylene to ethanol (ethanol-to-ethylene ratio of ~5.4) by inherently implanting Cu sites with perfluorooctane to create interfacial noncovalent interactions. The 1.83 %F-Cu<sub>2</sub>O organic-inorganic hybrids (OIHs) exhibited an extraordinary ethanol faradaic efficiency (FE<sub>ethanol</sub>) of ∼55.2 %, with an impressive ethanol partial current density of 166 mA cm<sup>-2</sup> and excellent robustness over 60 hours of continuous operation. This exceptional performance ranks our 1.83 %F-Cu<sub>2</sub>O OIHs among the best-performing ethanol-oriented CO<sub>2</sub>RR electrocatalysts. Our findings identified that C<sub>8</sub>F<sub>18</sub> could strengthen the interfacial hydrogen bonding connectivity, which consequently promotes the generation of active hydrogen species and preferentially favors the hydrogenation of *CHCOH to *CHCHOH, thus switching the reaction from ethylene-preferred to ethanol-oriented. The presented investigations highlight opportunities for using noncovalent interactions to tune the selectivity of CO<sub>2</sub> electroreduction to ethanol, bringing it closer to practical implementation requirements.
Authors
- Yongfa Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8528-509X)
- Zechao Zhuang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4788-1119)
- Hongwen Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3967-6182)
- Dingsheng S. Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0074-7633)
- Jing Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5200-1166)
- Dongge Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1451-004X)
- Chengsi Pan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1624-4259)
- Yuming Dong
- Bingling He (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3269-146X)
- Jiawei Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9202-0070)
- Pu Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1253-7759)
- Yao Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1690-0738)
- Jing Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4076-4083)
Institutions
- Jiangnan University (CN)
- Chaohu University (CN)
- Columbia University (US)
- Nanjing University (CN)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Angewandte Chemie International Edition
- Published
- 2024-12-03
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202418459
- Citations
- 62
- Primary Topic
- CO2 Reduction Techniques and Catalysts
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 6.35
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Government of Jiangsu Province
- Jiangnan University
- Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province