Cu/Fe3O4 Nanocomposites from Layered Double Hydroxides as Catalysts for Selective Electroreduction of Carbon Dioxide

The reduction of carbon dioxide to valuable chemical products is a hot topic of current research. In this article, Cu nanoparticle-decorated Fe3O4 (Cu/Fe3O4) is prepared by using layered double hydroxide (LDH) as the precursor. The CuFe-LDH is synthesized using the coprecipitation method and further reduced to obtain the final material Cu/Fe3O4. The uniform layered structure of LDH results in highly dispersed metallic elements in the corresponding Cu/Fe3O4, in which Cu atoms provide Cu0 and Cu+ pairs and good electrical conductivity during the reduction process with Fe3O4 as the framework. Therefore, Cu/Fe3O4 shows high selectivity for CO2 electroreduction to ethanol, in which the Faraday efficiency is 50.9% at −0.3 V vs RHE. Experimental results show that Cu/Fe3O4 generates uniformly distributed Cu+ sites during CO2 electroreduction, which is conducive to the formation of *CHO, a key intermediate to ethanol. This study provides a design method for catalysts of CO2 electroreduction with feasibility.