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  • Copper adparticle enabled s...
    Li, Jun; Che, Fanglin; Pang, Yuanjie; Zou, Chengqin; Howe, Jane Y; Burdyny, Thomas; Edwards, Jonathan P; Wang, Yuhang; Li, Fengwang; Wang, Ziyun; De Luna, Phil; Dinh, Cao-Thang; Zhuang, Tao-Tao; Saidaminov, Makhsud I; Cheng, Shaobo; Wu, Tianpin; Finfrock, Y Zou; Ma, Lu; Hsieh, Shang-Hsien; Liu, Yi-Sheng; Botton, Gianluigi A; Pong, Way-Faung; Du, Xiwen; Guo, Jinghua; Sham, Tsun-Kong; Sargent, Edward H; Sinton, David

    Nature communications, 11/2018, Volume: 9, Issue: 1
    Journal Article

    The electrochemical reduction of carbon monoxide is a promising approach for the renewable production of carbon-based fuels and chemicals. Copper shows activity toward multi-carbon products from CO reduction, with reaction selectivity favoring two-carbon products; however, efficient conversion of CO to higher carbon products such as n-propanol, a liquid fuel, has yet to be achieved. We hypothesize that copper adparticles, possessing a high density of under-coordinated atoms, could serve as preferential sites for n-propanol formation. Density functional theory calculations suggest that copper adparticles increase CO binding energy and stabilize two-carbon intermediates, facilitating coupling between adsorbed *CO and two-carbon intermediates to form three-carbon products. We form adparticle-covered catalysts in-situ by mediating catalyst growth with strong CO chemisorption. The new catalysts exhibit an n-propanol Faradaic efficiency of 23% from CO reduction at an n-propanol partial current density of 11 mA cm .