Amino Assisted Protonation for Carbon−Carbon Coupling During Electroreduction of Carbon Dioxide to Ethylene on Copper(I) Oxide

Graphical Electroreduction of CO 2 : The amino group is modified on the copper electrode with the cuprous oxide deposition layer by electrodeposition, and then the CO 2 is electrocatalytically reduced to ethylene on the surface, which promotes the efficient recycling of carbon resources in the ecosystem. Amino assisted protonation for carbon-carbon coupling during electroreduction of carbon dioxide to ethylene on copper(I) oxide reported by Penghui Shi, Guohua Zhao and co-workers from Shanghai University of Electric Power and Tongji University. The development of effective catalysts for the electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO 2 RR) to two-carbon (C 2 ) products is a practical approach to solve the energy crisis and stabilize the carbon cycle of the ecosystem. The production of electrocatalytic CO 2 RR with copper metal shows low selectivity and mainly generates one-carbon (C 1 ) products, hindering its wide practical application. The use of copper (I) oxide (Cu 2 O) in electrocatalysis has attracted intense research attention because it can more efficiently produce C 2 products with high energy density such as ethylene (C 2 H 4 ) and ethane (C 2 H 6 ). We use an amino-modified Cu 2 O catalyst (NH 2 −Cu 2 O) for electrocatalytic CO 2 RR to obtain significantly increased production of the CO and C 2 products. Electrochemical in-situ infrared spectroscopy analysis was used to detect the presence of the *COOH and *CHO reaction intermediates. Density functional theory calculations showed that the amino (−NH 2 ) modification reduces the free energy of the *CO→*CHO reaction that is the rate-determining step in C 2 H 4 production. Our results show that amino modification can promote the protonation of *CO and *CHO carbon-carbon coupling to produce C 2 H 4 . Thus, amino-modified copper-based catalysts are promising materials for application in electrocatalytic CO 2 RR to multi-carbon products.