Selective CO Electroreduction to Multicarbon Oxygenates Over Atomically Dispersed Cu–Ag Sites in Alkaline Membrane Electrode Assembly Electrolyzer
Electrochemical carbon monoxide reduction reaction (CORR) to produce multicarbon (C<sub>2+</sub>) oxygenates using renewable electricity is a promising carbon utilization pathway. However, the performance of this process suffers from low C<sub>2+</sub> oxygenates selectivity and insufficient current density. Here, we employed a Cu-Ag bimetallic strategy to enhance the selectivity of C<sub>2+</sub> oxygenates from CORR in alkaline membrane electrode assembly electrolyzer at ampere-level current densities. The Cu-Ag catalysts prepared by magnetron sputtering feature atomically dispersed Cu-Ag sites on the catalyst surface, which are key to promoting the formation of C<sub>2+</sub> oxygenates. Increasing Ag content favors C<sub>2+</sub> oxygenates formation while inhibiting ethylene production. The optimized Cu<sub>2</sub>Ag catalyst achieved Faradaic efficiency of 71.4% for C<sub>2+</sub> oxygenates at 2.5 A cm<sup>-2</sup>. In situ spectroscopy and density functional theory calculations revealed that atomically dispersed Cu-Ag sites on the catalyst surface promote the dissociation of *COCOH to *CCO, thus favoring C<sub>2+</sub> oxygenates formation.
Authors
- Pengfei Wei (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1155-6085)
- Guoxiong Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6042-1171)
- Qiang Fu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9993-8776)
- Rongtan Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2061-3368)
- Tianfu Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3974-1952)
- Xinhe Bao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9404-6429)
- Dunfeng Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2472-7349)
- Yanpeng Song (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-2127-7856)
- Ziqi Liao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8800-5011)
- Xinhui Guo
- Zichao Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2858-4856)
Institutions
- University of Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy (CN)
- Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- State Key Laboratory of Catalysis
Publication Details
- Journal
- Angewandte Chemie International Edition
- Published
- 2025-05-07
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202507062
- Citations
- 7
- Primary Topic
- CO2 Reduction Techniques and Catalysts
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.54
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- China Postdoctoral Science Foundation
- Yulin University
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
- Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy