Strain-optimized copper dual-atom sites for selective electroreduction of carbon dioxide to ethylene
Electrocatalytic carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) reduction holds the great potential to convert excess emissions of carbon footprint into high value-added chemicals, but its activity, selectivity, stability, and reproducibility are still far away from satisfactory. The molecular catalysts with precise structures are unique platform to decipher the electrocatalytic mechanism, but they usually suffer from low performance. Herein, we report a strain-optimized dual copper complex immobilized in mesoporous carbon, which exhibits remarkable ethylene (C<sub>2</sub>H<sub>4</sub>) Faradaic efficiency (FE) up to 49.9% along with a multicarbon (C<sub>2+</sub>) product's FE up to 65.2% at -1.19 volts versus reversible hydrogen electrode. Concurrently, the catalyst displays considerable stability for 15 hours at a full cell potential of -3.1 volts. The density functional theory calculation reveals that the strain effect imposed by mesoporous carbon regulates the neighboring dual copper sites in the electrocatalyst to decrease the energy barrier of rate-determining step (*COCO → *COCOH), thus significantly promoting ethylene production.
Authors
- Zhiyu Guo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7868-4065)
- Jianyu Han (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6889-654X)
- Pengfei An (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7231-4218)
- Sheng Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9428-3675)
- Caoyu Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0687-4270)
- Chang Long (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5949-7117)
- Lin Chang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8102-9213)
- Siyu Lu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4538-7846)
- Yin Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6066-0495)
- Ying Yue (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4885-6994)
- Qun Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0854-8807)
- Dawei Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3341-3544)
- Xuewei Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1273-9406)
- Xinwei Li
- Shuhao Yan
Institutions
- University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Zhengzhou University (CN)
- Institute of High Energy Physics (CN)
- National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (CN)
- Zhengzhou Railway Vocational & Technical College (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Southeast University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Science Advances
- Published
- 2025-09-12
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ads0609
- Citations
- 13
- Primary Topic
- CO2 Reduction Techniques and Catalysts
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 4.73