Phase and structure engineering of copper tin heterostructures for efficient electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction.

ABSTRACT: While engineering the phase and structure of electrocatalysts could regulate the performance of many typical electrochemical processes, its importance to the carbon dioxide electroreduction has been largely unexplored. Herein, a series of phase and structure engineered copper-tin dioxide catalysts have been created and thoroughly exploited for the carbon dioxide electroreduction to correlate performance with their unique structures and phases. The copper oxide/hollow tin dioxide heterostructure catalyst exhibits promising performance, which can tune the products from carbon monoxide to formic acid at high faradaic efficiency by simply changing the electrolysis potentials from -0.7 V_RHE to -1.0 V_RHE. The excellent performance is attributed to the abundant copper/tin dioxide interfaces involved in the copper oxide/hollow tin dioxide heterostructure during the electrochemical process, decreasing the reaction free-energies for the formation of COOH* species. Our work reported herein emphasizes the importance of phase and structure modulating of catalysts for enhancing electrochemical CO₂ reduction and beyond.

SUBMITTER: Wang P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6250663 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature