Chiral Nanostructured Ag Films for Multicarbon Products from CO<sub>2</sub> Electroreduction
Wanning Zhang, Jing Ai, Tianwei Ouyang, Lu Yu, Aokun Liu, Lu Han, Yingying Duan, Changlin Tian, Chaoyang Chu, Yanhang Ma, Shunai Che, Yuxi Fang
Abstract
The formation of multicarbon products from CO 2 electroreduction is challenging on materials other than Cu-based catalysts. Ag has been known to be a typical metal catalyst, producing CO in CO 2 electroreduction. The formation of C 2+ products by Ag has never been reported because the carbon–carbon (C–C) coupling is an unfavorable process due to the high reaction barrier energy of *OCCO. Here, we propose that the chirality-induced spin polarization of chiral nanostructured Ag films (CNAFs) can promote the formation of triplet OCCO by regulating its parallel electron spin alignment, and the helical lattice distortion of nanostructures can decrease the reaction energy of *OCCO, which triggers C–C coupling and promotes subsequent *OCCO hydrogenation to facilitate the generation of C 2+ products. The CNAFs with helically lattice-distorted nanoflakes were fabricated via electrodeposition using phenylalanine as the symmetry-breaking agent. C 2+ products (C 2 H 4, C 2 H 6, C 3 H 8, C 2 H 5 OH, and CH 3 COOH) with a Faradaic efficiency of ∼4.7% and a current density of ∼22 mA/cm 2 were generated in KHCO 3 electrolytes under 12.5 atm of CO 2 (g). Our findings propose that the chiral nanostructured materials can regulate the multifunctionality of catalytic performance in the catalytic reactions with triplet intermediates and products.