Fast Screening for Copper‐Based Bimetallic Electrocatalysts: Efficient Electrocatalytic Reduction of CO₂to C₂₊Products on Magnesium‐Modified Copper

Abstract

Electroreduction of CO 2 (CO 2 RR) into high value-added chemicals is an attractive route to achieve carbon neutrality. However, the development of an efficient catalyst for CO 2 RR is still largely by trial-anderror and is very time-consuming. Herein, we built an electrocatalyst testing platform featuring a home-built automatic flow cell to accelerate the discovery of efficient catalysts. A fast screening of 109 Cu-based bimetallic catalysts in only 55 h identifies Mg combined with Cu as the best electrocatalyst for CO 2 to C 2 + products. The thus designed MgÀ Cu catalyst achieves a Faradaic efficiency (FE) of C 2 + products up to 80 % with a current density of 1.0 A cm À 2 at À 0.77 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE). Systematic experiments with in situ spectroelectrochemistry analyses show that Mg 2 + species stabilize Cu + sites during CO 2 RR and promote the CO 2 activation, thus enhancing the *CO coverage to promote CÀ C coupling.

Oxophilicity-Controlled CO2 Electroreduction to C2+ Alcohols over Lewis Acid Metal-Doped Cuδ+ Catalysts

“…It also induces the rearrangement of the metal electronic structure, optimizes the adsorption of the key intermediates, and thus affects the intrinsic catalytic activity. 29,30 For instance, the doping of oxophilic transition metal Cr enables the modulation of the binding abilities of hydrogen and hydroxyl ions on the Ni surfaces. 31 The isolated Cu(I) ions strongly conjugated with NCN 2 − exhibit highly delocalized electrons, reducing the Cu−O interaction of the adsorbed CH 3 O* intermediate and thus switching the reaction paths.…”