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Steering Ethylene Electrosynthesis by Controlling Interfacial Water Orientation
Xinning Song1,2, Libing Zhang1,2, Xiaodong Ma1,2
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, China.
Angewandte Chemie (International Ed. in English)
|February 5, 2026
Summary
Researchers engineered catalyst surfaces to control water molecule orientation, significantly boosting ethylene production from CO2 electroreduction. This breakthrough offers a new strategy for designing efficient catalysts for chemical synthesis.
Area of Science:
- Catalysis
- Surface Chemistry
- Electrocatalysis
Background:
- Controlling reaction pathways through solvent polarization is challenging due to complex interfacial kinetics.
- Understanding interfacial water dynamics is crucial for regulating catalytic reactions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To establish interfacial water orientation as a method to control reaction pathway bifurcation in electrocatalysis.
- To demonstrate the role of water polarization in electrocatalytic CO2 reduction.
Main Methods:
- Utilized an adaptive subsurface tuning (AST) strategy to engineer Ga-doped Cu catalysts.
- Investigated interfacial water orientation and its coupling with H2O polarization.
- Employed electrocatalytic CO2 reduction as a model system.
Main Results:
- Achieved precise H-down water alignment on Ga/Cu catalysts, regulating proton transfer and intermediate stabilization.
- The optimized Ga/Cu catalyst yielded a 68.8% Faradaic efficiency for ethylene at 800 mA cm-2, significantly outperforming ethanol production.
- Attained high current density, competitive with top-performing catalysts for ethylene production.
Conclusions:
- Interfacial water orientation, specifically H-down alignment, enhances *H availability and directs selective C-O bond cleavage for high ethylene selectivity.
- Demonstrated that interfacial water orientation is a key factor in steering C-C coupling selectivity in electrocatalysis.
- Provided a rational design principle for developing efficient electroreduction systems.
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