CO electrolysis to multicarbon products over grain boundary-rich Cu nanoparticles in membrane electrode assembly electrolyzers

Hefei Li, Pengfei Wei, Tianfu Liu, Mingrun Li, Chao Wang, Rongtan Li, Jinyu Ye, Zhi-You Zhou, Shi-Gang Sun, Qiang Fu, Dunfeng Gao (), Guoxiong Wang () and Xinhe Bao
Additional contact information
Hefei Li: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Pengfei Wei: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Tianfu Liu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Mingrun Li: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Chao Wang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Rongtan Li: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Jinyu Ye: Xiamen University
Zhi-You Zhou: Xiamen University
Shi-Gang Sun: Xiamen University
Qiang Fu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Dunfeng Gao: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Guoxiong Wang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xinhe Bao: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Producing valuable chemicals like ethylene via catalytic carbon monoxide conversion is an important nonpetroleum route. Here we demonstrate an electrochemical route for highly efficient synthesis of multicarbon (C2+) chemicals from CO. We achieve a C2+ partial current density as high as 4.35 ± 0.07 A cm−2 at a low cell voltage of 2.78 ± 0.01 V over a grain boundary-rich Cu nanoparticle catalyst in an alkaline membrane electrode assembly (MEA) electrolyzer, with a C2+ Faradaic efficiency of 87 ± 1% and a CO conversion of 85 ± 3%. Operando Raman spectroscopy and density functional theory calculations reveal that the grain boundaries of Cu nanoparticles facilitate CO adsorption and C − C coupling, thus rationalizing a qualitative trend between C2+ production and grain boundary density. A scale-up demonstration using an electrolyzer stack with five 100 cm2 MEAs achieves high C2+ and ethylene formation rates of 118.9 mmol min−1 and 1.2 L min−1, respectively, at a total current of 400 A (4 A cm−2) with a C2+ Faradaic efficiency of 64%.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49095-2 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-49095-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49095-2

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().