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Updated: Jun 17, 2025

Versatile CO2 Transformations into Complex Products: A One-pot Two-step Strategy
Published on: November 9, 2019
Highly Selective CO2 Electroreduction to Multi-Carbon Alcohols via Amine Modified Copper Nanoparticles at Acidic
Yahui Wu1,2, Chunjun Chen1,2,3, Shoujie Liu4
1Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, CAS Laboratory of Colloid and Interface and Thermodynamics, CAS Research/Education Center for Excellence in Molecular Sciences, Center for Carbon Neutral Chemistry, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, P. R. China.
Abstract:
Electroreduction of CO2 into multi-carbon (C2+) products (e.g. C2+ alcohols) offers a promising way for CO2 utilization. Use of strong alkaline electrolytes is favorable to producing C2+ products. However, CO2 can react with hydroxide to form carbonate/bicarbonate, which results in low carbon utilization efficiency and poor stability. Using acidic electrolyte is an efficient way to solve the problems, but it is a challenge to achieve high selectivity of C2+ products. Here we report that the amine modified copper nanoparticles exhibit high selectivity of C2+ products and carbon utilization at acidic condition. The Faradaic efficiency (FE) of C2+ products reach up to 81.8 % at acidic media (pH=2) with a total current density of 410 mA cm-2 over n-butylamine modified Cu. Especially the FE of C2+ alcohols is 52.6 %, which is higher than those reported for CO2 electroreduction at acidic condition. In addition, the single-pass carbon efficiency towards C2+ production reach up to 60 %. Detailed studies demonstrate that the amine molecule on the surface of Cu cannot only enhance the formation, adsorption and coverage of *CO, but also provide a hydrophobic environment, which result in the high selectivity of C2+ alcohols at acidic condition.
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