Coupled Copper–Zinc Catalysts for Electrochemical Reduction of Carbon Dioxide

Abstract

A catalyst plays a key role in the electrochemical reduction of CO₂ to valuable chemicals and fuels. Hence, the development of efficient and inexpensive catalysts has attracted great interest from both the academic and industrial communities. In this work, low-cost catalysts coupling Cu and Zn are designed and prepared with a green microwave-assisted route. The Cu to Zn ratio in the catalysts can be easily tuned by adjusting the precursor solutions. The obtained Cu-Zn catalysts are mainly composed of polycrystalline Cu particles and monocrystalline ZnO nanoparticles. The electrodes with optimized Cu-Zn catalysts show enhanced CO production rates of approximately 200 μmol h^-1 cm^-2 with respect to those with a monometallic Cu or ZnO catalyst under the same applied potential. At the bimetallic electrodes, ZnO-derived active sites are selective for CO formation and highly conductive Cu favors electron transport in the catalyst layer as well as charge transfer at the electrode/electrolyte interface.