@article{dad1854bcd6c447d98ae5d3cb4f075a6,
title = "Steering post-C-C coupling selectivity enables high efficiency electroreduction of carbon dioxide to multi-carbon alcohols",
abstract = "Engineering copper-based catalysts that favour high-value alcohols is desired in view of the energy density, ready transport and established use of these liquid fuels. In the design of catalysts, much progress has been made to target the C-C coupling step; whereas comparatively little effort has been expended to target post-C-C coupling reaction intermediates. Here we report a class of core-shell vacancy engineering catalysts that utilize sulfur atoms in the nanoparticle core and copper vacancies in the shell to achieve efficient electrochemical CO2 reduction to propanol and ethanol. These catalysts shift selectivity away from the competing ethylene reaction and towards liquid alcohols. We increase the alcohol-to-ethylene ratio more than sixfold compared with bare-copper nanoparticles, highlighting an alternative approach to electroproduce alcohols instead of alkenes. We achieve a C2+ alcohol production rate of 126 ± 5 mA cm-2 with a selectivity of 32 ± 1% Faradaic efficiency.",
author = "Zhuang, {Tao Tao} and Liang, {Zhi Qin} and Ali Seifitokaldani and Yi Li and {De Luna}, Phil and Thomas Burdyny and Fanglin Che and Fei Meng and Yimeng Min and Rafael Quintero-Bermudez and Dinh, {Cao Thang} and Yuanjie Pang and Miao Zhong and Bo Zhang and Jun Li and Chen, {Pei Ning} and Zheng, {Xue Li} and Hongyan Liang and Ge, {Wen Na} and Ye, {Bang Jiao} and David Sinton and Yu, {Shu Hong} and Sargent, {Edward H.}",
note = "Funding Information: This work was supported by TOTAL American Services, the Ontario Research Fund Research Excellence programme, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, the CIFAR Bio-Inspired Solar Energy programme and a University of Toronto Connaught grant. S.-H.Y. acknowledges funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 21431006) and the Foundation for Innovative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 21521001). All DFT computations were performed on the IBM BlueGene/Q supercomputer with support from the Southern Ontario Smart Computing Innovation Platform (SOSCIP). SOSCIP is funded by the Federal Economic Development Agency of Southern Ontario, the Province of Ontario, IBM Canada, Ontario Centres of Excellence, Mitacs and 15 Ontario academic member institutions. Z.L. acknowledges a scholarship from the China Scholarship Council (CSC) (201607090041). A.S. acknowledges Fonds de Recherche du Quebec—Nature et Technologies (FRQNT) for support in the form of a postdoctoral fellowship award. P.D.L. acknowledges NSERC for support in the form of a Canada Graduate Scholarship doctoral award. P.D.L. also wishes to acknowledge Y.Hu and the Canadian Light Source for assistance with X-ray absorption experiments. The authors thank A.Ip, Y.Wang, J.Fan, J.Li, C.Zou and Y.Zhou from the University of Toronto for fruitful discussions. Funding Information: This work was supported by TOTAL American Services, the Ontario Research Fund Research Excellence programme, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, the CIFAR Bio-Inspired Solar Energy programme and a University of Toronto Connaught grant. S.-H.Y. acknowledges funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 21431006) and the Foundation for Innovative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 21521001). All DFT computations were performed on the IBM BlueGene/Q supercomputer with support from the Southern Ontario Smart Computing Innovation Platform (SOSCIP). SOSCIP is funded by the Federal Economic Development Agency of Southern Ontario, the Province of Ontario, IBM Canada, Ontario Centres of Excellence, Mitacs and 15 Ontario academic member institutions. Z.L. acknowledges a scholarship from the China Scholarship Council (CSC) (201607090041). A.S. acknowledges Fonds de Recherche du Quebec - Nature et Technologies (FRQNT) for support in the form of a postdoctoral fellowship award. P.D.L. acknowledges NSERC for support in the form of a Canada Graduate Scholarship doctoral award. P.D.L. also wishes to acknowledge Y. Hu and the Canadian Light Source for assistance with X-ray absorption experiments. The authors thank A. Ip, Y. Wang, J. Fan, J. Li, C. Zou and Y. Zhou from the University of Toronto for fruitful discussions. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2018 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved.",
year = "2018",
month = jun,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1038/s41929-018-0084-7",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "1",
pages = "421--428",
journal = "Nature Catalysis",
issn = "2520-1158",
publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",
number = "6",
}