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Research Article

Synergetic effects of gold-doped copper nanowires with low Au content for enhanced electrocatalytic CO2 reduction to multicarbon products

Zongnan Wei1,2, Shuai Yue1,2, Shuiying Gao2,3, Minna Cao2,3( ), Rong Cao2,3,4( )
Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou 350002, China
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Fujian Science & Technology Innovation Laboratory for Optoelectronic Information of China, Fuzhou 350108, China
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Graphical Abstract

Cu99.3Au0.7 nanowires (NWs) exhibited superior performance in electrocatalytic CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) toward multicarbon (C2+) products than Cu96.7Au3.3 and Cu NWs. The enhancement could be attributed to the charge transfer and CO spillover between Cu and Au sites.

Abstract

As efficient catalysts of electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) towards multicarbon (C2+) products, Cu-based catalysts have faced the challenges of increasing the reactive activity and selectivity. Herein, we decorated the surface of Cu nanowires (Cu NWs) with a small amount of Au nanoparticles (Au NPs) by the homo-nucleation method. When the Au to Cu mass ratio is as little as 0.7 to 99.3, the gold-doped copper nanowires (Cu-Au NWs) could effectively improve the selectivity and activity of CO2RR to C2+ resultants, with the Faradaic efficiency (FE) from 39.7% (Cu NWs) to 65.3%, and the partial current density from 7.0 (Cu NWs) to 12.1 mA/cm2 under −1.25 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE). The enhanced electrocatalytic performance could be attributed to the following three synergetic factors. The addition of Au nanoparticles caused a rougher surface of the catalyst, which allowed for more active sites exposed. Besides, Au sites generated *CO intermediates spilling over into Cu sites with the calculated efficiency of 87.2%, which are necessary for multicarbon production. Meanwhile, the interphase electron transferred from Cu to Au induced the electron-deficient Cu, which favored the adsorption of *CO to further generate multicarbon productions. Our results uncovered the morphology, tandem, and electronic effect between Cu NWs and Au NPs facilitated the activity and selectivity of CO2RR to multicarbons.

Keywords

electrochemical CO2 reductionmulticarbon productionbimetallic catalystCu nanowiresAu nanoparticles

Electronic Supplementary Material

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Nano Research
Volume 16 Issue 5,
May 2023
Pages 7777-7783
DOI: 10.1007/s12274-023-5430-z
Cite this article:
Wei Z, Yue S, Gao S, et al. Synergetic effects of gold-doped copper nanowires with low Au content for enhanced electrocatalytic CO2 reduction to multicarbon products. Nano Research, 2023, 16(5): 7777-7783. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5430-z
Topics:
Electrolytic reduction Nanowires

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Received: 17 October 2022
Revised: 06 December 2022
Accepted: 21 December 2022
Published: 18 February 2023
© Tsinghua University Press 2023
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