Enhanced Ethanol Production from CO2 Electroreduction at Micropores in Nitrogen-Doped Mesoporous Carbon.

Efficient formation of valuable multicarbon products in CO2 electrochemical reduction is challenging, owing to the difficulty of C-C coupling. Medium micropores embedded in the channel walls of nitrogen-doped ordered mesoporous carbon are found to capably promote ethanol production from CO2 electroreduction. By scaling up the medium micropore content, the yield of ethanol is increased to 2.3 mmol gcat -1  h-1 , far outperforming previously reported state-of-the-art electrocatalysts. The intrinsically higher activity is attributed to the desolvation effect induced by the medium micropores, facilitating the coupling reaction of C1 intermediates to form ethanol.