Multicarbons generation factory: CuO/Ni single atoms tandem catalyst for boosting the productivity of CO2 electrocatalysis

Yu Zhang; Peng Li; Changming Zhao; Gang Zhou; Fangyao Zhou; Qitao Zhang; Chenliang Su; Yuen Wu

doi:10.1016/j.scib.2022.07.029

Multicarbons generation factory: CuO/Ni single atoms tandem catalyst for boosting the productivity of CO₂ electrocatalysis

Sci Bull (Beijing). 2022 Aug 31;67(16):1679-1687. doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2022.07.029. Epub 2022 Jul 28.

Authors

Yu Zhang¹, Peng Li², Changming Zhao², Gang Zhou³, Fangyao Zhou², Qitao Zhang⁴, Chenliang Su⁵, Yuen Wu⁶

Affiliations

¹ International Collaborative Laboratory of 2D Materials for Optoelectronic Science & Technology of Ministry of Education, Engineering Technology Research Center for 2D Materials Information Functional Devices and Systems of Guangdong Province, Institute of Microscale Optoelectronics, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China; Department of Chemistry, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
² Department of Chemistry, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
³ School of Science, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan 430068, China.
⁴ International Collaborative Laboratory of 2D Materials for Optoelectronic Science & Technology of Ministry of Education, Engineering Technology Research Center for 2D Materials Information Functional Devices and Systems of Guangdong Province, Institute of Microscale Optoelectronics, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China.
⁵ International Collaborative Laboratory of 2D Materials for Optoelectronic Science & Technology of Ministry of Education, Engineering Technology Research Center for 2D Materials Information Functional Devices and Systems of Guangdong Province, Institute of Microscale Optoelectronics, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China. Electronic address: chmsuc@szu.edu.cn.
⁶ Department of Chemistry, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China. Electronic address: yuenwu@ustc.edu.cn.

PMID: 36546047
DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2022.07.029

Abstract

Tandem electrocatalysis is an emerging concept for effective electrochemical CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂RR) towards multicarbons (C₂₊). This decouples the multiple steps of CO₂-to-C₂₊ into two steps of CO₂-to-CO and CO-to-C₂₊ catalyzed by individual catalysts, to improve the Faradic efficiency (FE). However, due to the mass-transport limitation of CO from the generation site to the long-distance consumption site, such a strategy still remains challenge for high-rate production of C₂₊ products. Herein, we designed CuO/Ni single atoms tandem catalyst, which made the catalytic sites of Ni and Cu for independently catalyzing CO₂-to-CO and CO-to-C₂₊ compactly neighbored, enabling the in-situ generation and rapid consumption of CO. The CuO/Ni SAs tandem catalyst achieved a particularly high partial current density of C₂₊ products (1220.8 mA/cm²), while still maintained outstanding C₂₊ products FE (81.4%) and excellent selectivities towards ethylene (FE 54.1%) and ethanol (FE 28.8%), enabling the profitable production of multicarbons by CO₂RR.

Keywords: Adjacent nanostructures; CO(2) electroreduction; High production rate; Multicarbons; Tandem catalyst.