The plasmonic effect of Cu on tuning CO2 reduction activity and selectivity

Jing Xue; Zhenlin Chen; Kun Dang; Lei Wu; Hongwei Ji; Chuncheng Chen; Yuchao Zhang; Jincai Zhao

doi:10.1039/d3cp05450k

The plasmonic effect of Cu on tuning CO₂ reduction activity and selectivity

Phys Chem Chem Phys. 2024 Jan 24;26(4):2915-2925. doi: 10.1039/d3cp05450k.

Authors

Jing Xue^{1

2}, Zhenlin Chen^{1

2}, Kun Dang^{1

2}, Lei Wu^{1

2}, Hongwei Ji^{1

2}, Chuncheng Chen^{1

2}, Yuchao Zhang^{1

2}, Jincai Zhao^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Photochemistry, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, P. R. China. yczhang@iccas.ac.cn.
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, P. R. China.

PMID: 38186081
DOI: 10.1039/d3cp05450k

Abstract

Copper (Cu) has been widely used for catalyzing the CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂RR), but the plasmonic effect of Cu has rarely been explored for tuning the activity and selectivity of the CO₂RR. Herein, we conducted a quantitative analysis on the plasmon-generated photopotential (E_hv) of a Cu nanowire array (NA) photocathode and found that E_hv exclusively reduced the apparent activation energy (E_a) of reducing CO₂ to CO without affecting the competitive hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). As a result, the CO production rate was enhanced by 52.6% under plasmon excitation when compared with that under dark conditions. On further incorporation with a polycrystalline Si photovoltaic device, the Cu NA photocathode exhibits good stability in terms of photocurrent and syngas production (CO : H₂ = 2 : 1) within 10 h. This work validates the crucial role of the plasmonic effect of Cu on modulating the activity and selectivity of the CO₂RR.