Stabilizing Copper by a Reconstruction-Resistant Atomic Cu–O–Si Interface for Electrochemical CO 2 Reduction

Copper (Cu), a promising catalyst for electrochemical CO2 reduction (CO2R) to multi-electron reduction products, suffers from an unavoidable and uncontrollable reconstruction process during the reaction, which not only may lead to catalyst deactivation but also brings great challenges to the exploration of the structure–performance relationship. Herein, we present an efficient strategy for stabilizing Cu with silica and synthesize reconstruction-resistant CuSiOx amorphous nanotube catalysts with abundant atomic Cu–O–Si interfacial sites. The strong interfacial interaction between Cu and silica makes the Cu–O–Si interfacial sites ultrastable in the CO2R reaction without any apparent reconstruction, thus…

• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Awards: U22B2071, 22102081, 21925202
• MO
  Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China

  Award: 2021YFF0500503