Selective Electrocatalytic Activity of Ligand Stabilized Copper Oxide Nanoparticles

Abstract

Ligand stabilization can influence the surface chemistry of Cu oxide nanoparticles (NPs) and provide unique product distributions for electrocatalytic methanol (MeOH) oxidation and CO2 reduction reactions. Oleic acid (OA) stabilized Cu2O and CuO NPs promote the MeOH oxidation reaction with 88% and 99.97% selective HCOH formation, respectively. Alternatively, CO2 is the only reaction product detected for bulk Cu oxides and Cu oxide NPs with no ligands or weakly interacting ligands. We also demonstrate that OA stabilized Cu oxide NPs can reduce CO2 into CO with a ∼1.7-fold increase in CO/H2 production ratios compared to bulk Cu oxides. The OA stabilized Cu oxide NPs also show 7.6 and 9.1-fold increases in CO/H2 production ratios compared to weakly stabilized and nonstabilized Cu oxide NPs, respectively. Our data illustrates that the presence and type of surface ligand can substantially influence the catalytic product selectivity of Cu oxide NPs.