Honeycomb-like CuO@C for electroreduction of carbon dioxide to ethylene

Lina Zhang; Xin Li; Lihui Chen; Chunyang Zhai; Hengcong Tao

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.02.145

Honeycomb-like CuO@C for electroreduction of carbon dioxide to ethylene

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Jun 15:640:783-790. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.02.145. Epub 2023 Mar 2.

Authors

Lina Zhang¹, Xin Li², Lihui Chen², Chunyang Zhai³, Hengcong Tao⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China; School of Petrochemical Engineering & Environment, Zhejiang Ocean University, Zhoushan 316022, China.
² School of Petrochemical Engineering & Environment, Zhejiang Ocean University, Zhoushan 316022, China.
³ School of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China. Electronic address: zhaichunyang@nbu.edu.cn.
⁴ School of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China; School of Petrochemical Engineering & Environment, Zhejiang Ocean University, Zhoushan 316022, China; College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China. Electronic address: hengcongtao@zjou.edu.cn.

PMID: 36898182
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.02.145

Abstract

The electrochemical CO₂ reduction (ECR) of high-value multicarbon products is an urgent challenge for catalysis and energy resources. Herein, we reported a simple polymer thermal treatment strategy for preparing honeycomb-like CuO@C catalysts for ECR with remarkable C₂H₄ activity and selectivity. The honeycomb-like structure favored the enrichment of more CO₂ molecules to improve the CO₂-to-C₂H₄ conversion. Further experimental results indicate that the CuO loaded on amorphous carbon with a calcination temperature of 600 °C (CuO@C-600) has a Faradaic efficiency (FE) as high as 60.2% towards C₂H₄ formation, significantly outperforming pure CuO-600 (18.3%), CuO@C-500 (45.1%) and CuO@C-700 (41.4%), respectively. The interaction between the CuO nanoparticles and amorphous carbon improves the electron transfer and accelerates the ECR process. Furthermore, in situ Raman spectra demonstrated that CuO@C-600 can adsorb more adsorbed *CO intermediates, which enriches the CC coupling kinetics and promotes C₂H₄ production. This finding may offer a paradigm to design high-efficiency electrocatalysts, which can be beneficial to achieve the "double carbon goal."

Keywords: CO(2) reduction; CuO@C composites; Electrochemical catalysis; Ethylene; Honeycomb-like.