Aluminum-Doped Mesoporous Copper Oxide Nanofibers Enabling High-Efficiency CO<sub>2</sub> Electroreduction to Multicarbon Products
Miaomiao Fang, Yujin Ji, Yecan Pi, Pengtang Wang, Zhiwei Hu, Jyh‐Fu Lee, Huan Pang, Youyong Li, Qi Shao, Xiaoqing Huang
Abstract
Copper is the most promising catalyst for the electrocatalytic conversion of CO2 into multicarbon (C2+) products but it is often plagued by low selectivity and productivity. Here, we report that aluminum (Al)-doped mesoporous copper oxide nanofibers (Cu-Al MONFs) can exhibit excellent performance in the electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 to C2+ products, with the remarkable C2+ Faradaic efficiency of 76.4% at a high current density of 600 mA cm–2. In sharp contrast, the comparative CuO nanofibers exhibit extremely severe hydrogen evolution (FE up to ∼70%) and limited C2+ products under the same condition. Detailed investigations indicate that the introduction of Al not only induces the formation of a mesoporous structure during the etching process but also adjusts the electronic structure of Cu via doping, which optimize the intermediate binding and C–C coupling on the Cu-Al MONFs. This work provides new inspiration for exploring high-performance Cu-based materials for electrocatalytic reduction of CO2.