Benchmarking of commercial Cu catalysts in CO2 electro-reduction using a gas-diffusion type microfluidic flow electrolyzer

In this work, three commercial Cu catalysts were benchmarked in the CO2RR using a gas-diffusion type microfluidic flow electrolyzer. We showed that commercial Cu could deliver a high FE of near 80% for C2+ product formations at 300 mA cm(-2). By tuning the catalyst loading, a high reaction rate of near 1 A cm(-2) with a C2+ product FE over 70% was achieved. Our results demonstrated that commercial Cu could achieve similar or better performances compared to many current catalysts by design in the CO2RR using similar electrolyzers. In addition, we showed that high CO reduction reaction (CORR) performance could also be achieved on commercial Cu, and disparities between CO and CO2 electrolysis were discussed.

Automated summary

This study benchmarked three commercial Cu catalysts in CO2RR using a gas-diffusion type microfluidic flow electrolyzer. The results showed that commercial Cu can achieve a high FE of nearly 80% for C2+ product formations at 300 mA cm(-2). By adjusting the catalyst loading, a high reaction rate of nearly 1 A cm(-2) with a C2+ product FE over 70% was achieved. The study demonstrated that commercial Cu can achieve similar or better performances compared to many current catalysts by design in the CO2RR using similar electrolyzers. Additionally, high CO reduction reaction (CORR) performance can also be achieved on commercial Cu, and the disparities between CO and CO2 electrolysis were discussed.