Lattice Strain Engineering Boosts CO 2 Electroreduction to C 2+ Products.

Regulating the binding effect between the surface of an electrode material and reaction intermediates is essential in highly efficient CO 2 electro-reduction to produce high-value multicarbon (C 2+ ) compounds. Theoretical study reveals that lattice tensile strain in single-component Cu catalysts can reduce the dipole-dipole repulsion between *CO intermediates and promotes *OH adsorption, and the high *CO and *OH coverage decreases the energy barrier for C-C coupling. In this work, Cu catalysts with varying lattice tensile strain were fabricated by electro-reducing CuO precursors with different crystallinity, without adding any extra components. The as-prepared single-component Cu catalysts were used for CO 2 electro-reduction, and it is discovered that the lattice tensile strain in Cu could enhance the Faradaic efficiency (FE) of C 2+ products effectively. Especially, the as-prepared Cu TPA catalyst with high lattice tensile strain achieves a FE C2+ of 90.9 % at -1.25 V vs. RHE with a partial current density of 486.1 mA cm -2 .