Honeycomb-like CuO@C for electroreduction of carbon dioxide to ethylene

The electrochemical CO 2 reduction (ECR) of high-value multicarbon products is an urgent challenge for catalysis and energy resources. Herein, we reported a simple polymer thermal treatment strategy for preparing honeycomb-like CuO@C catalysts for ECR with remarkable C 2 H 4 activity and selectivity. The honeycomb-like structure favored the enrichment of more CO 2 molecules to improve the CO 2 -to-C 2 H 4 conversion. Further experimental results indicate that the CuO loaded on amorphous carbon with a calcination temperature of 600 °C (CuO@C-600) has a Faradaic efficiency (FE) as high as 60.2% towards C 2 H 4 formation, significantly outperforming pure CuO-600 (18.3%), CuO@C-500 (45.1%) and CuO@C-700 (41.4%), respectively. The interaction between the CuO nanoparticles and amorphous carbon improves the electron transfer and accelerates the ECR process. Furthermore, in situ Raman spectra demonstrated that CuO@C-600 can adsorb more adsorbed *CO intermediates, which enriches the C C coupling kinetics and promotes C 2 H 4 production. This finding may offer a paradigm to design high-efficiency electrocatalysts, which can be beneficial to achieve the “double carbon goal.”