Electrochemical Reduction of CO 2 Using Copper Single-Crystal Surfaces: Effects of CO* Coverage on the Selective Formation of Ethylene

Copper oxide-derived Cu catalysts are known to exhibit enhanced energetic efficiencies and selectivities towards the reduction of carbon dioxide to commercially vital C2 products such as ethylene (C2H4). However, the cause of this selectivity is not fully understood. In this work, we elucidated a fundamental reason underlying the selectivity of CO2 reduction toward C2 products by studying its reactivity on Cu(100), Cu(111), and Cu(110) single-crystal surfaces. A combination of cyclic and linear sweep voltammetries, chronoamperometry, online gas chromatography, 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and density functional theory (DFT) calculations was employed for this end. A wide range of electrochemical…

• NU
  National University of Singapore

  Award: R-143-000-587-112
• MO
  Ministry of Education - Singapore
• TR
  Thailand Research Fund
• NN
  National Nanotechnology Center