What is it about?
Transformation of CO2 into multicarbon (C2+) products such as ethylene and ethanol is a highly attractive route for CO2 utilization. This article reports a very powerful fluorine-modified copper catalyst, which achieves current densities of 1.6 A cm−2 with a C2+ Faradaic efficiency of 80% for electrocatalytic CO2 reduction in a flow cell.
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Why is it important?
Electrocatalytic conversion of CO2 using renewable electricity under mild conditions has become a research boom. High Faradaic efficiency for C2+ products has been achieved in recent publications. However, to obtain high activity at high C2+ Faradaic efficiency is very challenging. The most important innovation of the present work is that we have succeeded in obtaining ~80% C2+ Faradaic efficiency at an ultrahigh current density of 1.6 A cm−2 in a flow cell using gas-diffusion electrodes. The single-pass yield of ethylene and ethanol outperforms those obtained using thermocatalytic hydrogenation of CO2. A new C-C coupling mechanism has been proposed.
Perspectives
To further improve the stability and to develop more efficient electrocatalysts are future targets.
Professor Ye Wang
Xiamen University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 to ethylene and ethanol through hydrogen-assisted C–C coupling over fluorine-modified copper, Nature Catalysis, April 2020, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1038/s41929-020-0450-0.
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