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Tailoring Copper Nanocrystals towards C 2 Products in Electrochemical CO 2 Reduction
Author(s) -
Loiudice Anna,
Lobaccaro Peter,
Kamali Esmail A.,
Thao Timothy,
Huang Brandon H.,
Ager Joel W.,
Buonsanti Raffaella
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
angewandte chemie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1521-3757
pISSN - 0044-8249
DOI - 10.1002/ange.201601582
Subject(s) - selectivity , nanocrystal , copper , catalysis , faraday efficiency , electrochemistry , materials science , density functional theory , redox , nanotechnology , inorganic chemistry , chemical engineering , chemistry , metallurgy , computational chemistry , organic chemistry , electrode , engineering
Favoring the CO 2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) over the hydrogen evolution reaction and controlling the selectivity towards multicarbon products are currently major scientific challenges in sustainable energy research. It is known that the morphology of the catalyst can modulate catalytic activity and selectivity, yet this remains a relatively underexplored area in electrochemical CO 2 reduction. Here, we exploit the material tunability afforded by colloidal chemistry to establish unambiguous structure/property relations between Cu nanocrystals and their behavior as electrocatalysts for CO 2 reduction. Our study reveals a non‐monotonic size‐dependence of the selectivity in cube‐shaped copper nanocrystals. Among 24 nm, 44 nm and 63 nm cubes tested, the cubes with 44 nm edge length exhibited the highest selectivity towards CO2RR (80 %) and faradaic efficiency for ethylene (41 %). Statistical analysis of the surface atom density suggests the key role played by edge sites in CO2RR.