Silica-copper catalyst interfaces enable carbon-carbon coupling towards ethylene electrosynthesis

Jun Li, Adnan Ozden, Mingyu Wan, Yongfeng Hu, Fengwang Li, Yuhang Wang, Reza R. Zamani, Dan Ren, Ziyun Wang, Yi Xu, Dae-Hyun Nam, Joshua Wicks, Bin Chen, Xue Wang, Mingchuan Luo, Michael Graetzel, Fanglin Che (), Edward H. Sargent () and David Sinton ()
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Jun Li: University of Toronto
Adnan Ozden: University of Toronto
Mingyu Wan: University of Massachusetts Lowell
Yongfeng Hu: University of Saskatchewan
Fengwang Li: University of Toronto
Yuhang Wang: University of Toronto
Reza R. Zamani: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Dan Ren: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Ziyun Wang: University of Toronto
Yi Xu: University of Toronto
Dae-Hyun Nam: University of Toronto
Joshua Wicks: University of Toronto
Bin Chen: University of Toronto
Xue Wang: University of Toronto
Mingchuan Luo: University of Toronto
Michael Graetzel: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Fanglin Che: University of Massachusetts Lowell
Edward H. Sargent: University of Toronto
David Sinton: University of Toronto

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Membrane electrode assembly (MEA) electrolyzers offer a means to scale up CO2-to-ethylene electroconversion using renewable electricity and close the anthropogenic carbon cycle. To date, excessive CO2 coverage at the catalyst surface with limited active sites in MEA systems interferes with the carbon-carbon coupling reaction, diminishing ethylene production. With the aid of density functional theory calculations and spectroscopic analysis, here we report an oxide modulation strategy in which we introduce silica on Cu to create active Cu-SiOx interface sites, decreasing the formation energies of OCOH* and OCCOH*—key intermediates along the pathway to ethylene formation. We then synthesize the Cu-SiOx catalysts using one-pot coprecipitation and integrate the catalyst in a MEA electrolyzer. By tuning the CO2 concentration, the Cu-SiOx catalyst based MEA electrolyzer shows high ethylene Faradaic efficiencies of up to 65% at high ethylene current densities of up to 215 mA cm−2; and features sustained operation over 50 h.

Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-23023-0

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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-23023-0

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