Dual-atom Cu2/N-doped carbon catalyst for electroreduction of CO2 to C2H4

Electrochemical reduction of CO 2 to multi-carbon products is very attractive yet particularly challenging due to the low efficiency of C-C coupling over currently used electrocatalysts. In this work, we report a dual-atom catalyst (Cu 2 /NC) capable of selectively promoting electro-reduction of CO 2 to C 2 H 4 . The Faradaic efficiency of CO 2 -to-C 2 H 4 over the Cu 2 /NC is up to ∼34.9% with a current density of 33.6 mA·cm −2 . By contrast, its Cu single-atom counterpart only generates CO without forming C 2 H 4 . The density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal that the Cu-Cu sites largely promote the adsorption of *CO and reduce the energy barrier of C-C coupling between the adsorbed *CO relative to that of the single Cu sites, which accounts for the high C 2 H 4 selectivity of the Cu 2 /NC.