Highly Selective CO<sub>2</sub> Electroreduction to C<sub>2+</sub> Products over Cu<sub>2</sub>O-Decorated 2D Metal–Organic Frameworks with Rich Heterogeneous Interfaces
Chang Liu, Mingmin Wang, Jinyu Ye, Liangbin Liu, Leigang Li, Yun-Hua Li, Xiaoqing Huang
Abstract
The electroreduction of carbon dioxide into high-value-added products is an effective approach to alleviating the energy crisis and pollution issues. However, there are still significant challenges for multicarbon (C 2+ ) product production due to the lack of efficient catalysts with high selectivity. Herein, a Cu-rich electrocatalyst, where Cu 2 O nanoparticles are decorated on two-dimensional (2D) Cu-BDC metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) with abundant heterogeneous interfaces, is synthesized for highly selective CO 2 electroreduction into C 2+ products. A high C 2+ Faradaic efficiency of 72.1% in an H-type cell and 58.2% in a flow cell are obtained, respectively. The heterogeneous interfaces of Cu 2 O/Cu-BDC can optimize the adsorption energy of reaction intermediates during CO 2 electroreduction. An in situ infrared spectroscopy study indicates that the constructed interfaces can maintain the particular distribution of Cu valence states, where the C–C coupling is promoted to efficiently produce C 2+ products owing to the stabilization of *CHO and *COH intermediates.