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  4. Gold-in-copper at low *CO coverage enables efficient electromethanation of CO2
 
research article

Gold-in-copper at low *CO coverage enables efficient electromethanation of CO2

Wang, Xue
•
Ou, Pengfei
•
Wicks, Joshua
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June 7, 2021
Nature Communications

The renewable-electricity-powered CO2 electroreduction reaction provides a promising means to store intermittent renewable energy in the form of valuable chemicals and dispatchable fuels. Renewable methane produced using CO2 electroreduction attracts interest due to the established global distribution network; however, present-day efficiencies and activities remain below those required for practical application. Here we exploit the fact that the suppression of *CO dimerization and hydrogen evolution promotes methane selectivity: we reason that the introduction of Au in Cu favors *CO protonation vs. C-C coupling under low *CO coverage and weakens the *H adsorption energy of the surface, leading to a reduction in hydrogen evolution. We construct experimentally a suite of Au-Cu catalysts and control *CO availability by regulating CO2 concentration and reaction rate. This strategy leads to a 1.6x improvement in the methane:H-2 selectivity ratio compared to the best prior reports operating above 100mAcm(-2). We as a result achieve a CO2-to-methane Faradaic efficiency (FE) of (562)% at a production rate of (112 +/- 4) mA cm(-2). The electroreduction of CO2 offers a promising approach to produce carbon-neutral methane using renewable electricity. This study shows that the introduction of Au in Cu enables selective methane production from CO2 by regulating *CO availability.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1038/s41467-021-23699-4
Web of Science ID

WOS:000667727200041

Author(s)
Wang, Xue
Ou, Pengfei
Wicks, Joshua
Xie, Yi
Wang, Ying
Li, Jun  
Tam, Jason
Ren, Dan  
Howe, Jane Y.
Wang, Ziyun
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Date Issued

2021-06-07

Publisher

Nature Research

Published in
Nature Communications
Volume

12

Issue

1

Article Number

3387

Subjects

Multidisciplinary Sciences

•

Science & Technology - Other Topics

•

initio molecular-dynamics

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total-energy calculations

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electrochemical reduction

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carbon-dioxide

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reaction-mechanisms

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cu(100) surface

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liquid fuel

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electroreduction

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cu

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electrocatalysts

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
LPI  
Available on Infoscience
July 17, 2021
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/180100
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