Copper adparticle enabled selective electrosynthesis of n-propanol

Copper adparticle enabled selective electrosynthesis of n-propanol

Li, Jun (University of Toronto)
Che, Fanglin (University of Toronto)
Pang, Yuanjie (University of Toronto)
Zou, Chengqin (University of Toronto; Tianjin University)
Howe, Jane Y. (Hitachi High Technologies America, Inc.)
Burdyny, T.E. (TU Delft ChemE/Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage; University of Toronto)
Edwards, Jonathan P. (University of Toronto)
Wang, Yuhang (University of Toronto)
Li, Fengwang (University of Toronto)
Wang, Ziyun (University of Toronto)

2018

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⁻².

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:813e08e7-6925-4781-b89c-aded3f65448e

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07032-0

2041-1723

Nature Communications, 9 (1)

Correction:The original version of this Article incorrectly omitted the received/accepted dates of Received: 05 June 2018; Accepted: 10 October2018. This has now been corrected in the PDF and HTML versions of the Article with 10.1038/s41467-020-14883-z

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© 2018 Jun Li, Fanglin Che, Yuanjie Pang, Chengqin Zou, Jane Y. Howe, T.E. Burdyny, Jonathan P. Edwards, Yuhang Wang, Fengwang Li, Ziyun Wang, More Authors