Login / Signup

Copper-on-nitride enhances the stable electrosynthesis of multi-carbon products from CO2.

Zhi-Qin LiangTao-Tao ZhuangAli SeifitokaldaniJun LiChun-Wei HuangChih-Shan TanYi LiPhil De LunaCao Thang DinhYongfeng HuQunfeng XiaoPei-Lun HsiehYuhang WangFengwang LiRafael Quintero-BermudezYansong ZhouPeining ChenYuanjie PangShen-Chuan LoLih-Juann ChenHairen TanZheng XuSuling ZhaoDavid SintonEdward H Sargent
Published in: Nature communications (2018)
Copper-based materials are promising electrocatalysts for CO2 reduction. Prior studies show that the mixture of copper (I) and copper (0) at the catalyst surface enhances multi-carbon products from CO2 reduction; however, the stable presence of copper (I) remains the subject of debate. Here we report a copper on copper (I) composite that stabilizes copper (I) during CO2 reduction through the use of copper nitride as an underlying copper (I) species. We synthesize a copper-on-nitride catalyst that exhibits a Faradaic efficiency of 64 ± 2% for C2+ products. We achieve a 40-fold enhancement in the ratio of C2+ to the competing CH4 compared to the case of pure copper. We further show that the copper-on-nitride catalyst performs stable CO2 reduction over 30 h. Mechanistic studies suggest that the use of copper nitride contributes to reducing the CO dimerization energy barrier-a rate-limiting step in CO2 reduction to multi-carbon products.
Keyphrases
  • oxide nanoparticles
  • quantum dots
  • gold nanoparticles
  • visible light
  • highly efficient
  • case control
  • genetic diversity