Carbon dioxide electroreduction to C2 products over copper-cuprous oxide derived from electrosynthesized copper complex

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 1 - 11
• Main Authors: Zhu, Qinggong, Sun, Xiaofu, Yang, Dexin, Ma, Jun, Kang, Xinchen, Zheng, Lirong, Zhang, Jing, Wu, Zhonghua, Han, Buxing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 26-08-2019; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 140/131; 140/146; 147/135; 147/143; 639/638/161/886; 639/638/224/685; 639/638/224/909; Acetic acid; Aqueous electrolytes; Aqueous solutions; Carbon dioxide; Coordination compounds; Copper; Copper compounds; Copper oxides; Dendritic structure; Electrocatalysts; Electrodes; Electrowinning; Ethanol; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Potassium; Potassium chloride; Reduction; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Substrates; Three dimensional composites
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11599-7

Efficient electroreduction of carbon dioxide to multicarbon products in aqueous solution is of great importance and challenging. Unfortunately, the low efficiency of the production of C
2
products limits implementation at scale. Here, we report reduction of carbon dioxide to C
2
products (acetic acid and ethanol) over a 3D dendritic copper-cuprous oxide composite fabricated by in situ reduction of an electrodeposited copper complex. In potassium chloride aqueous electrolyte, the applied potential was as low as −0.4 V vs reversible hydrogen electrode, the overpotential is only 0.53 V (for acetic acid) and 0.48 V (for ethanol) with high C
2
Faradaic efficiency of 80% and a current density of 11.5 mA cm
−2
. The outstanding performance of the electrode for producing the C
2
products results mainly from near zero contacting resistance between the electrocatalysts and copper substrate, abundant exposed active sites in the 3D dendritic structure and suitable copper(I)/copper(0) ratio of the electrocatalysts.
Electrocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide is attractive for obtaining multicarbon products, but conversion efficiency is low. Here the authors use copper complex materials for electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide to ethanol and acetic acid with high efficiencies and activities.