Nitrate‐Stabilized Cu <sup>δ+</sup> Sites Promote Selective CO <sub>2</sub> Electroreduction to Ethanol for Tandem Acetamide Electrosynthesis
ABSTRACT Electrosynthesis of acetamide, a multicarbon nitrogenous compound containing C─C─N bonds, from abundant CO 2 and nitrate is important for low‐carbon industry. However, the simultaneous electroreduction construction of C─C and C─N bonds is challenging. Herein, we propose a strategy to construct C─C and C─N bonds in tandem at the cathode and anode, respectively. At the cathode, a nitrate‐induced dynamic Cu δ+ site is designed to promote C─C coupling activity from CO 2 reduction to ethanol, which is accompanied by the generation of ammonia from nitrate reduction, with a total Faradaic efficiency of 88.6%. The generated ethanol and ammonia serve as feedstocks for the tandem construction of C─N bonds at the anodic region via a possible nucleophilic attack pathway. We achieve the synthesis of acetamide with a Faradaic efficiency of 71.4% and a yield rate of 0.13 mmol h −1 cm −2 . The carbon footprint analysis of this tandem strategy revealed net‐zero emissions at a carbon intensity of 0.23 kg CO2e kWh −1 , indicating its sustainable nature from the viewpoint of carbon neutrality.
Authors
- Rong Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6112-3149)
- Nannan Meng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9326-8564)
- Minghao Guo
- Yifu Yu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7927-1350)
- Jiang Shao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4684-7472)
- Hui Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9198-3951)
- Chengying Guo
- Ang Cao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3787-6949)
- Bin Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0542-1819)
Institutions
- Tianjin University (CN)
- Sichuan University (CN)
- Zhejiang Energy Research Institute (CN)
- Zhejiang Energy Group (China) (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Angewandte Chemie
- Published
- 2026-05-23
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/ange.5526884
- Primary Topic
- CO2 Reduction Techniques and Catalysts
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China