Fast Screening for Cu-based Bimetallic Electrocatalysts: Efficient Electrocatalytic Reduction of CO2 to C2+ Products on Magnesium-Copper

Authors: Mingcan Xie, Yan Shen, Wenchao Ma, Diye Wei, Biao Zhang, Zihan Wang, Yihan Wang, Qinghong Zhang, Shunji, Xie*, Cheng Wang*, Ye Wang*

Abstract: Electroreduction of CO2 (CO2 RR) into high value-added chemicals is an attractive route to achieve carbon neutralization. However, the development of an efficient catalyst for CO2 RR is still largely by trial-and-error and is very time-consuming. Herein, we bulid an electrocatalyst testing platform featuring a home-built automatic flow cell to accelarate the discovery of efficient catalysts. A fast screening of 109 Cu-based bimetallic catalysts in only ~55 h identifies the Mg combined with Cu as the best electrocatalyst for CO2 to C2+ products. The thus designed Mg-Cu catalyst achieves a Faradaic efficiency (FE) of C2+ products up to 80% with a current density of 1.0 A cm-2 at -0.77 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE). Systematic experiments with in-situ spectroelectrochemistry analyses unravel that Mg2+ species stabilizes Cu+ sites during CO2 RR and promotes the CO2 activation, thus enhancing the *CO coverage to promote C-C coupling.

Link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202213423