Highly Electrocatalytic Ethylene Production from CO<sub>2</sub> on Nanodefective Cu Nanosheets
Bingxing Zhang, Jianling Zhang, Manli Hua, Qiang Wan, Zhuizhui Su, Xiuniang Tan, Lifei Liu, Fanyu Zhang, Gang Chen, Dongxing Tan, Xiuyan Cheng, Buxing Han, Lirong Zheng, Guang Mo
Abstract
The electrochemical synthesis of chemicals from carbon dioxide, which is an easily available and renewable carbon resource, is of great importance. However, to achieve high product selectivity for desirable C2 products like ethylene is a big challenge. Here we design Cu nanosheets with nanoscaled defects (2–14 nm) for the electrochemical production of ethylene from carbon dioxide. A high ethylene Faradaic efficiency of 83.2% is achieved. It is proved that the nanoscaled defects can enrich the reaction intermediates and hydroxyl ions on the electrocatalyst, thus promoting C–C coupling for ethylene formation.