Achieving Efficient CO2 Electrochemical Reduction on Tunable In(OH)3-Coupled Cu2O-Derived Hybrid Catalysts

Tengfei Li; Hongmei Wei; Tianmo Liu; Gengfeng Zheng; Subiao Liu; Jing-Li Luo

doi:10.1021/acsami.9b04580

Achieving Efficient CO₂ Electrochemical Reduction on Tunable In(OH)₃-Coupled Cu₂O-Derived Hybrid Catalysts

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2019 Jun 26;11(25):22346-22351. doi: 10.1021/acsami.9b04580. Epub 2019 Jun 12.

Authors

Tengfei Li^{1

2}, Hongmei Wei², Tianmo Liu², Gengfeng Zheng³, Subiao Liu¹, Jing-Li Luo¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering , University of Alberta , Edmonton , Alberta T6G 1H9 , Canada.
² College of Materials Science and Engineering , Chongqing University , Chongqing 400044 , China.
³ Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Department of Chemistry and Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials , Fudan University , Shanghai 200438 , China.

PMID: 31149792
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.9b04580

Abstract

Tunable In(OH)₃-coupled Cu₂O-derived hybrid catalysts are facilely synthesized to boost the selectivity and efficiency of the electrochemical CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂RR). The maximum faradaic efficiency (FE) of 90.37% for CO production is achieved at -0.8 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode. The mechanistic discussion suggests that the composition-dependent synergistic effect results in the enhanced selectivity for CO on the hybrid catalyst. By increasing the concentration of the electrolyte, a dramatically enhanced current density of 40.17 mA cm^-2 was achieved at -1.0 V in 0.7 M KHCO₃. Furthermore, a KHCO₃ electrolyte with high concentration promotes the selectivity of CO₂RR over the low overpotential range. At a low overpotential of 290 mV, the increased FE for CO of 74.05% is obtained in 0.7 M KHCO₃ as compared to that of 57.04% in 0.1 M KHCO₃. Combining with the synergistic effect of the catalyst and the concentration effect of the electrolyte, the hybrid catalyst achieves high efficiency, high selectivity, and high stability for CO₂RR.

Keywords: carbon dioxide; concentration effect; electrochemical reduction; hybrid catalyst; synergistic effect.