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Electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 to ethylene and ethanol through hydrogen-assisted C–C coupling over fluorine-modified copper

Nature Catalysis volume 3, pages 478–487 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 into multicarbon (C2+) products is a highly attractive route for CO2 utilization; however, the yield of C2+ products remains low because of the limited C2+ selectivity at high CO2 conversion rates. Here we report a fluorine-modified copper catalyst that exhibits an ultrahigh current density of 1.6 A cm−2 with a C2+ (mainly ethylene and ethanol) Faradaic efficiency of 80% for electrocatalytic CO2 reduction in a flow cell. The C2–4 selectivity reaches 85.8% at a single-pass yield of 16.5%. We show a hydrogen-assisted C–C coupling mechanism between adsorbed CHO intermediates for C2+ formation. Fluorine enhances water activation, CO adsorption and hydrogenation of adsorbed CO to CHO intermediate that can readily undergo coupling. Our findings offer an opportunity to design highly active and selective CO2 electroreduction catalysts with potential for practical application.

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Fig. 1: Electrocatalytic CO2RR performances.
Fig. 2: Morphologies and chemical states of X−Cu catalysts.
Fig. 3: The DFT calculation results.
Fig. 4: Functioning mechanism of halogen on X−Cu catalysts.
Fig. 5: In situ ATR-FTIRS and reaction scheme.

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Data availability

The data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its Supplementary Information. Additional data are available from the corresponding authors on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (no. 2017YFB0602201), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 21690082, 91545203, 21503176 and 21802110), We thank the staff at the BL14W1 beamline of the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facilities (SSRF) for assistance with the extended X-ray absorption fine structure measurements.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Wenchao Ma, Shunji Xie, Tongtong Liu.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, National Engineering Laboratory for Green Chemical Productions of Alcohols, Ethers and Esters, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China

    Wenchao Ma, Shunji Xie, Tongtong Liu, Qiyuan Fan, Jinyu Ye, Qinghong Zhang, Jun Cheng & Ye Wang

  2. Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China

    Fanfei Sun & Zheng Jiang

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Contributions

W.M. and S.X. performed most of the experiments and analysed the experimental data. T.L. and Q.F. performed computational studies and analysed the computational data. J.Y conducted ATR-FTIRS measurements and analysed the results. F.S. and Z.J. conducted XAS measurements and analysed the results. Q.Z. analysed all the data and co-wrote the paper. J.C. guided the computational work, analysed all the data and co-wrote the paper. Y.W. designed and guided the study, and co-wrote the paper. All of the authors discussed the results and reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Qinghong Zhang, Jun Cheng or Ye Wang.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Methods, Notes 1–3, Figs. 1–38, Tables 1–8 and References.

Supplementary Data 1

The atomic coordinates of the optimized computational models.

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Ma, W., Xie, S., Liu, T. et al. Electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 to ethylene and ethanol through hydrogen-assisted C–C coupling over fluorine-modified copper. Nat Catal 3, 478–487 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-020-0450-0

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