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

Qinggong Zhu; Xiaofu Sun; Dexin Yang; Jun Ma; Xinchen Kang; Lirong Zheng; Jing Zhang; Zhonghua Wu; Buxing Han

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-11599-7

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

Nat Commun. 2019 Aug 26;10(1):3851. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-11599-7.

Authors

Qinggong Zhu¹, Xiaofu Sun^{1

2}, Dexin Yang^{1

2}, Jun Ma³, Xinchen Kang^{1

2}, Lirong Zheng⁴, Jing Zhang⁴, Zhonghua Wu⁴, Buxing Han^{5

6

7}

Affiliations

¹ Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, CAS Key Laboratory of Colloid, Interface and Chemical Thermodynamics, CAS Research/Education Center for Excellence in Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, P. R. China.
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, P. R. China.
³ Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, CAS Key Laboratory of Colloid, Interface and Chemical Thermodynamics, CAS Research/Education Center for Excellence in Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, P. R. China. majun@iccas.ac.cn.
⁴ Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, P. R. China.
⁵ Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, CAS Key Laboratory of Colloid, Interface and Chemical Thermodynamics, CAS Research/Education Center for Excellence in Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, P. R. China. hanbx@iccas.ac.cn.
⁶ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, P. R. China. hanbx@iccas.ac.cn.
⁷ Shanghai Key Laboratory of Green Chemistry and Chemical Processes, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, P. R. China. hanbx@iccas.ac.cn.

Abstract

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 C₂ products limits implementation at scale. Here, we report reduction of carbon dioxide to C₂ 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 C₂ Faradaic efficiency of 80% and a current density of 11.5 mA cm^-2. The outstanding performance of the electrode for producing the C₂ 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.