Selective CO₂ reduction to acetate via controlled sp²/sp³ carbon hybridization.

ABSTRACT: Electrocatalytic reduction of CO₂ to fuels and chemicals represents a promising pathway for CO₂ utilization and energy conversion. However, metal-based catalysts often suffer from diminished selectivity in the direct reduction of CO₂ to acetate due to suboptimal intermediate adsorption energy imposed by the linear scaling relationship of d-band theory. We describe a deposition-etching strategy that tunes the sp²/sp³ hybridization of carbon in diamond to tune the adsorption equilibrium of intermediates for CO₂ reduction to acetate, which circumvents the constraints of the d-band electrons. This metal-free catalyst achieves a Faradaic efficiency of 62.7% for CO₂-to-acetate conversion and demonstrated 100 hours durab

SUBMITTER: Wang C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12647788 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature