Sulfur Changes the Electrochemical CO₂ Reduction Pathway over Cu Electrocatalysts

Abstract

Electrochemical CO₂ reduction to value-added chemicals or fuels offers a promising approach to reduce carbon emissions and alleviate energy shortage. Cu-based electrocatalysts have been widely reported as capable of reducing CO₂ to produce a variety of multicarbon products (e.g., ethylene and ethanol). In this work, we develop sulfur-doped Cu₂ O electrocatalysts, which instead can electrochemically reduce CO₂ to almost exclusively formate. We show that a dynamic equilibrium of S exists at the Cu₂ O-electrolyte interface, and S-doped Cu₂ O undergoes in situ surface reconstruction to generate active S-adsorbed metallic Cu sites during the CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂ RR). Density functional theory (DFT) calculations together with in situ infrared absorption spectroscopy measurements show that the S-adsorbed metallic Cu surface can not only promote the formation of the *OCHO intermediate but also greatly suppress *H and *COOH adsorption, thus facilitating CO₂ -to-formate conversion during the electrochemical CO₂ RR.