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

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.