Isolated copper single sites for high-performance electroreduction of carbon monoxide to multicarbon products

Electrochemical carbon monoxide reduction is a promising strategy for the production of value-added multicarbon compounds, albeit yielding diverse products with low selectivities and Faradaic efficiencies. Here, copper single atoms anchored to Ti3C2Tx MXene nanosheets are firstly demonstrated as effective and robust catalysts for electrochemical carbon monoxide reduction, achieving an ultrahigh selectivity of 98% for the formation of multicarbon products. Particularly, it exhibits a high Faradaic efficiency of 71% towards ethylene at -0.7V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode, superior to the previously reported copper-based catalysts. Besides, it shows a stable activity during the 68-h electrolysis. Theoretical simulations reveal that atomically dispersed Cu-O-3 sites favor the C-C coupling of carbon monoxide molecules to generate the key *CO-CHO species, and then induce the decreased free energy barrier of the potential-determining step, thus accounting for the high activity and selectivity of copper single atoms for carbon monoxide reduction. Electrochemical carbon monoxide reduction is a promising strategy to yield valuable multicarbon products but low selectivities and Faradaic efficiencies are common. Here the authors show single atom copper catalyst supported on MXene with high CO reduction performance and stability.

Automated summary

Electrochemical carbon monoxide reduction is a promising strategy for producing high-value multicarbon compounds, but low selectivities and Faradaic efficiencies are common. In this study, a single-atom copper catalyst supported on MXene showed high performance and stability in CO reduction.