Research
Product selective active sites for electrochemical CO2 reduction
Lum, Y. and Ager, J., Evidence for product-specific active sites on oxide-derived Cu catalysts for electrochemical CO2 reduction. Nature Catalysis, DOI: 10.1038/s41929-018-0201-7 (2018).
Scientific Achievement
Oxide derived (OD) Cu catalysts have 3 different types of active sites for selectively producing C-C coupled products
Significance & impact
Insights from this work will enable highly selective CO2 reduction catalysts to be developed
Research Details
OD Cu catalysts have selective active sites for C-C coupled products:
ethylene, ethanol/acetate, 1-propanolPolycrystalline Cu and oriented Cu (100) and (111) do not possess product selective sites
Adsorption energy of *COOH may be a descriptor for the product selectivity of a given active site.
Contact: jwager@lbl.gov
Reprinted from Lum, Y. and Ager, J., Evidence for product-specific active sites on oxide-derived Cu catalysts for electrochemical CO2 reduction. Nature Catalysis, DOI: 10.1038/s41929-018-0201-7 (2018).
Remembering where you are from: Electrochemical reduction of mixtures of 13CO and 12CO2 produces adsorbed 13CO and 12CO. The isotopic distribution in a given C-C coupled product reports on the 12CO-13CO ratio at the site which formed it.
Reprinted from Lum, Y. and Ager, J., Evidence for product-specific active sites on oxide-derived Cu catalysts for electrochemical CO2 reduction. Nature Catalysis, DOI: 10.1038/s41929-018-0201-7 (2018).
Product selectivity: 13C fraction of products from OD Cu are different, indicating presence of product selective sites. In contrast, 13C fraction of products from oriented and polycrystalline Cu do not differ; these surfaces do not have product selective sites.