Cu/Fe<sub>3</sub>O<sub>4</sub> Nanocomposites from Layered Double Hydroxides as Catalysts for Selective Electroreduction of Carbon Dioxide
Jinqing He, Tong Dou, Shuteng Diao, Yiping Wang, Xuhui Zhao, Fazhi Zhang, Xiaodong Lei
Abstract
The reduction of carbon dioxide to valuable chemical products is a hot topic of current research. In this article, Cu nanoparticle-decorated Fe 3 O 4 (Cu/Fe 3 O 4 ) is prepared by using layered double hydroxide (LDH) as the precursor. The CuFe-LDH is synthesized using the coprecipitation method and further reduced to obtain the final material Cu/Fe 3 O 4 . The uniform layered structure of LDH results in highly dispersed metallic elements in the corresponding Cu/Fe 3 O 4, in which Cu atoms provide Cu 0 and Cu + pairs and good electrical conductivity during the reduction process with Fe 3 O 4 as the framework. Therefore, Cu/Fe 3 O 4 shows high selectivity for CO 2 electroreduction to ethanol, in which the Faraday efficiency is 50.9% at −0.3 V vs RHE. Experimental results show that Cu/Fe 3 O 4 generates uniformly distributed Cu + sites during CO 2 electroreduction, which is conducive to the formation of *CHO, a key intermediate to ethanol. This study provides a design method for catalysts of CO 2 electroreduction with feasibility.