Vertical Cu Nanoneedle Arrays Enhance the Local Electric Field Promoting C2 Hydrocarbons in the CO2 Electroreduction

Yajiao Zhou; Yanqing Liang; Junwei Fu; Kang Liu; Qin Chen; Xiqing Wang; Hongmei Li; Li Zhu; Junhua Hu; Hao Pan; Masahiro Miyauchi; Liangxing Jiang; Emiliano Cortés; Min Liu

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c04653

Vertical Cu Nanoneedle Arrays Enhance the Local Electric Field Promoting C₂ Hydrocarbons in the CO₂ Electroreduction

Nano Lett. 2022 Mar 9;22(5):1963-1970. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c04653. Epub 2022 Feb 15.

Authors

Yajiao Zhou¹, Yanqing Liang^{1

2}, Junwei Fu¹, Kang Liu¹, Qin Chen¹, Xiqing Wang¹, Hongmei Li¹, Li Zhu³, Junhua Hu⁴, Hao Pan⁵, Masahiro Miyauchi⁶, Liangxing Jiang², Emiliano Cortés³, Min Liu¹

Affiliations

¹ Hunan Joint International Research Center for Carbon Dioxide Resource Utilization, State Key Laboratory of Powder Metallurgy, School of Physics and Electronics, Central South University, Changsha 410083, PR China.
² School of Metallurgy and Environment, Central South University, Changsha 410083, PR China.
³ Chair in Hybrid Nanosystems, Faculty of Physics, Ludwig Maximilians Universität München, 80539 München, Germany.
⁴ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, PR China.
⁵ Department of Periodontics & Oral Mucosal Section, Xiangya Stomatological Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, 410008, PR China.
⁶ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, School of Materials and Chemical Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8552, Japan.

PMID: 35166553
DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c04653

Abstract

Electrocatalytic reduction of CO₂ to multicarbon products is a potential strategy to solve the energy crisis while achieving carbon neutrality. To improve the efficiency of multicarbon products in Cu-based catalysts, optimizing the *CO adsorption and reducing the energy barrier for carbon-carbon (C-C) coupling are essential features. In this work, a strong local electric field is obtained by regulating the arrangement of Cu nanoneedle arrays (CuNNAs). CO₂ reduction performance tests indicate that an ordered nanoneedle array reaches a 59% Faraday efficiency for multicarbon products (FE_C2) at -1.2 V (vs RHE), compared to a FE_C2 of 20% for a disordered nanoneedle array (CuNNs). As such, the very high and local electric fields achieved by an ordered Cu nanoneedle array leads to the accumulation of K⁺ ions, which benefit both *CO adsorption and C-C coupling. Our results contribute to the design of highly efficient catalysts for multicarbon products.

Keywords: *CO adsorption; C2 hydrocarbon; CO2 reduction; copper; nanoneedle arrays.