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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

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. Furthermore, 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. We suggest new experiments to validate our predicted mechanisms.

Research Organization:
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0004993
OSTI ID:
1347749
Journal Information:
Journal of the American Chemical Society, Journal Name: Journal of the American Chemical Society Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 139; ISSN 0002-7863
Publisher:
American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Sequential catalysis controls selectivity in electrochemical CO 2 reduction on Cu journal January 2018
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Grand canonical electronic density-functional theory: Algorithms and applications to electrochemistry journal March 2017
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Grand canonical electronic density-functional theory: algorithms and applications to electrochemistry text January 2017