Constraining CO<sub>2</sub> Coverage on Copper Promotes CO<sub>2</sub> Electroreduction to Multi‐carbon Products in Strong Acid
Electrocatalytic CO<sub>2</sub> reduction (CO<sub>2</sub>R) to multi-carbon (C<sub>2+</sub>) products in strong acid presents a promising approach to mitigate the CO<sub>2</sub> loss commonly encountered in alkaline and neutral systems. However, this process often suffers from low selectivity for C<sub>2+</sub> products due to the competing C<sub>1</sub> (e.g., CO and HCOOH) formation and complex C-C coupling kinetics. In this work, we report a CO<sub>2</sub> coverage constraining strategy by diluting CO<sub>2</sub> reactant feed to modulate the intermediate distribution and C-C coupling pathways for an enhanced electrosynthesis of C<sub>2+</sub> products in strong acid. Lowering the CO<sub>2</sub> feed concentration reduces CO<sub>2</sub> coverage on copper catalyst, enriching the surface coverage and optimizing the adsorption configuration of the key CO intermediate for C-C coupling. This approach efficiently suppresses the formation of undesired C<sub>1</sub> products. By employing a 20 % CO<sub>2</sub> feed, we achieved a significant improvement in C<sub>2+</sub> Faradaic efficiency, reaching 68 % at 100 mA cm<sup>-2</sup>, approximately 1.7 times higher than the 41 % obtained using pure CO<sub>2</sub>. We demonstrated the direct electroreduction of a 30 % CO<sub>2</sub> feed-representative CO<sub>2</sub> concentration of typical industrial flue gases-in a full electrolyzer, achieving a C<sub>2+</sub> selectivity of 78 % and an energy efficiency of 23 % at 200 mA cm<sup>-2</sup>.
Authors
- Wanfeng Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7751-7858)
- Yiqing Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7711-9443)
- Zhangsheng Shi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2341-2422)
- Xindie Jin
- Jiameng Sun
- Yong Sheng Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1431-2083)
- Hangjuan Ren (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1799-3219)
- Xin Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2686-466X)
- Zhonghua Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2883-4459)
Institutions
- Northwestern University (US)
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (AU)
- Shandong University (CN)
- City University of Hong Kong (HK)
- Nanyang Technological University (SG)
- University of Jinan (CN)
- Monash University (AU)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Angewandte Chemie International Edition
- Published
- 2024-12-26
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202422082
- Citations
- 11
- Primary Topic
- CO2 Reduction Techniques and Catalysts
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.13