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Title: Atomistic mechanisms underlying selectivities in C1 and C2 products from electrochemical reduction of CO on Cu(111)

Journal Article · · Journal of the American Chemical Society
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.6b06846· OSTI ID:1347749

Practical environmental and energy applications of the electrochemical reduction of CO2 to chemicals and fuels require far more efficient and selective electrocatalysts beyond the only working material Cu, but the wealth of experimental data on Cu can serve to validate any proposed mechanisms. To provide design guidelines, we use quantum mechanics to predict the detailed atomistic mechanisms responsible for C1 and C2 products on Cu. Thus, we report the pH dependent routes to the major products, methane and ethylene, and identify the key intermediates where branches to methanol, ketene, ethanol, acetylene, and ethane are kinetically blocked. We discovered that surface water on Cu plays a key role in the selectivity for hydrocarbon products over the oxygen-containing alcohol products by serving as a strong proton donor for electrochemical dehydration reductions. Furthermore, we suggest new experiments to validate our predicted mechanisms.

Research Organization:
California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0004993
OSTI ID:
1347749
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1347750
Journal Information:
Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 139, Issue 1; ISSN 0002-7863
Publisher:
American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 235 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Sequential catalysis controls selectivity in electrochemical CO 2 reduction on Cu journal January 2018
Synergy between Fe and Ni in the optimal performance of (Ni,Fe)OOH catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction journal May 2018
Dramatic differences in carbon dioxide adsorption and initial steps of reduction between silver and copper journal April 2019
Promoting Ethylene Selectivity from CO 2 Electroreduction on CuO Supported onto CO 2 Capture Materials journal February 2018
The identification of optimal active boron sites for N 2 reduction journal January 2020
Understanding the apparent fractional charge of protons in the aqueous electrochemical double layer journal August 2018
Copper nanocavities confine intermediates for efficient electrosynthesis of C3 alcohol fuels from carbon monoxide journal October 2018
Catalyst synthesis under CO2 electroreduction favours faceting and promotes renewable fuels electrosynthesis journal December 2019
Atomic origins of high electrochemical CO 2 reduction efficiency on nanoporous gold journal January 2018
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Advances and challenges in understanding the electrocatalytic conversion of carbon dioxide to fuels journal September 2019
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A short review of recent advances in CO 2 hydrogenation to hydrocarbons over heterogeneous catalysts journal January 2018
Recent Progress in the Theoretical Investigation of Electrocatalytic Reduction of CO 2 journal April 2018
Edge‐Exposed Molybdenum Disulfide with N‐Doped Carbon Hybridization: A Hierarchical Hollow Electrocatalyst for Carbon Dioxide Reduction journal March 2019
Porous Copper Microspheres for Selective Production of Multicarbon Fuels via CO 2 Electroreduction journal August 2019
Electrochemical CO 2 reduction on Cu and Au electrodes studied using in situ sum frequency generation spectroscopy journal January 2019
Selective electrochemical CO 2 conversion to multicarbon alcohols on highly efficient N-doped porous carbon-supported Cu catalysts journal January 2020
Efficient upgrading of CO to C3 fuel using asymmetric C-C coupling active sites journal November 2019
The importance of grand-canonical quantum mechanical methods to describe the effect of electrode potential on the stability of intermediates involved in both electrochemical CO 2 reduction and hydrogen evolution journal January 2018
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Constraining CO coverage on copper promotes high-efficiency ethylene electroproduction journal November 2019
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Origin of the overpotentials for HCOO and CO formation in the electroreduction of CO 2 on Cu(211): the reductive desorption processes decide journal January 2018
Hydrogen bonding steers the product selectivity of electrocatalytic CO reduction journal April 2019
Catalyst electro-redeposition controls morphology and oxidation state for selective carbon dioxide reduction journal January 2018
Theoretical insights into the effect of the overpotential on CO electroreduction mechanisms on Cu(111): regulation and application of electrode potentials from a CO coverage-dependent electrochemical model journal January 2020
Anomalous hydrogen evolution behavior in high-pH environment induced by locally generated hydronium ions journal October 2019
Grand canonical electronic density-functional theory: Algorithms and applications to electrochemistry journal March 2017
Mechanism and kinetics for both thermal and electrochemical reduction of N 2 catalysed by Ru(0001) based on quantum mechanics journal January 2019
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