Hierarchically porous Cu/Zn bimetallic catalysts for highly selective CO2 electroreduction to liquid C2 products

By Xingsong Su, Yuanmiao Sun, Lei Jin, Lei Zhang, Yue Yang, Peter Kerns, Ben Liu, Shuzhou Li, Jie He. 2020

141 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Hierarchically macroporous-mesoporous (HMMP) Cu/Zn alloy catalysts are reported to promote CO2 electroreduction towards liquid C2 products. HMMP Cu/Zn alloys with two types of distinct pores (∼320 nm and ∼20 nm) and adjustable alloy compositions are prepared through the interfacial self-assembly of two polymer templates and metal precursors. Due to add-in synergies of hierarchically porous structures and bimetallic elemental compositions, the resultant HMMP Cu/Zn alloy catalysts remarkably promote the deep electroreduction of CO2 to liquid C2 products while simultaneously suppressing the competitive proton reduction. Among them, HMMP Cu5Zn8 exhibits the best electrocatalytic selectivity (with a very high ethanol production of 46.6 % at −0.8 V) and excellent stability (even after electrocatalysis for 11 h) towards CO2 electroreduction. This strategy allows for the reliable synthesis of other HMMP alloy nanocatalysts for a wide range of electrocatalytic applications.

Subfields: Catalysis, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bfaba40c188d78507b780460d566a6c3ea237795