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Updated: Jul 21, 2025
Synthesis and Performance Characterizations of Transition Metal Single Atom Catalyst for Electrochemical CO2 Reduction
Published on: April 10, 2018
Guiding catalytic CO2 reduction to ethanol with copper grain boundaries
Dongfang Cheng1,2, Gong Zhang1,2, Lulu Li1,2
1Key Laboratory for Green Chemical Technology of Ministry of Education, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University Tianjin 300072 China jlgong@tju.edu.cn.
Abstract:
The grain boundaries (GBs) in copper (Cu) electrocatalysts have been suggested as active sites for CO2 electroreduction to ethanol. Nevertheless, the mechanisms are still elusive. Herein, we describe how GBs tune the activity and selectivity for ethanol on two representative Cu-GB models, namely Cu∑3/(111) GB and Cu∑5/(100) GB, using joint first-principles calculations and experiments. The unique geometric structures on the GBs facilitate the adsorption of bidentate intermediates, *COOH and *CHO, which are crucial for CO2 activation and CO protonation. The decreased CO-CHO coupling barriers on the GBs can be rationalized via kinetics analysis. Furthermore, when introducing GBs into Cu (100), the product is selectively switched from ethylene to ethanol, due to the stabilization effect for *CH3CHO and inapposite geometric structure for *O adsorption, which are validated by experimental trends. An overall 12.5 A current and a single-pass conversion of 5.18% for ethanol can be achieved over the synthesized Cu-GB catalyst by scaling up the electrode into a 25 cm2 membrane electrode assembly system.
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