Cu2 o-ag tandem catalysts for selective electrochemical reduction of co2 to c2 products

Abstract

The electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO2 RR) to C2 chemicals has received great attention. Here, we report the cuprous oxide (Cu2 O) nanocubes cooperated with silver (Ag) nanoparticles via the replacement reaction for a synergetic CO2 RR. The Cu2 O-Ag tandem catalyst exhibits an impressive Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 72.85% for C2 products with a partial current density of 243.32 mA·cm−2 . The electrochemical experiments and density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal that the introduction of Ag improves the intermediate CO concentration on the catalyst surface and meanwhile reduces the C-C coupling reaction barrier energy, which is favorable for the synthesis of C2 products.