Boosting electrocatalytic CO2–to–ethanol production via asymmetric C–C coupling

Abstract Electroreduction of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) into multicarbon products provides possibility of large-scale chemicals production and is therefore of significant research and commercial interest. However, the production efficiency for ethanol (EtOH), a significant chemical feedstock, is impractically low because of limited selectivity, especially under high current operation. Here we report a new silver–modified copper–oxide catalyst (dCu 2 O/Ag 2.3% ) that exhibits a significant Faradaic efficiency of 40.8% and energy efficiency of 22.3% for boosted EtOH production. Importantly, it achieves CO 2 –to–ethanol conversion under high current operation with partial current density of 326.4 mA cm −2 at −0.87 V…

• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Awards: 2212100020, 21903058, 22173066, 22103054, 2017YFA0208200, 22025108, 2016YFA0204100
• XU
  Xiamen University

  Awards: 22025108, 2017YFA0208200, 2020YFB1505802
• HE
  Higher Education Discipline Innovation Project

  Award: 2017YFA0208200
• AR
  Australian Research Council

  Awards: DP220102596, FL170100154, DP220102596, FL170100154