Copper lattice tension boosts full-cellCO electrolysis to multi-carbon olefins and oxygenates

Authors:Wenchao Ma, ShunjiXie, Biao Zhang, Xiaoyang He, Xi Liu, Bingbao Mei, Fanfei Sun, Zheng Jiang, Li Lin, Qinghong Zhang, Bin Ren, Gang Fu, Xile Hu, Ye Wang*

Summary:Electrocatalytic upgrading of CO to value-added multi-carbon (C₂₊) compounds is a promising approach to efficient carbon utilization. However, current full-cell systems have low energy conversion efficiencies under practical conditions due to the requirement of high cell voltages for an industrially relevant current density. Here, we present a lattice tension strategy to enhance CO chemisorption and carbon–carbon coupling on copper catalysts at high CO coverages, which usually cause excessive dipole-dipole repulsion and are detrimental to C–C coupling. A current density of 1.0 A cm⁻² with 84% Faradaic efficiency of C₂₊ compounds is achieved at 2.4 V on a spindle-shaped copper with 4% lattice tension. The C₂₊ products are formed with nearly 100% selectivity and in a 41% single-pass yield (on a molar carbon basis). This work demonstrates a great potential of electrocatalytic CO reduction for the practical synthesis of high-value chemicals from CO₂ and abundant carbon resources.

Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2451929423001419?via%3Dihub