Bipyridine-Assisted Assembly of Au Nanoparticles on Cu Nanowires To Enhance the Electrochemical Reduction of CO2

Jiaju Fu; Wenlei Zhu; Ying Chen; Zhouyang Yin; Yuyang Li; Juan Liu; Hongyi Zhang; Jun-Jie Zhu; Shouheng Sun

doi:10.1002/anie.201905318

Bipyridine-Assisted Assembly of Au Nanoparticles on Cu Nanowires To Enhance the Electrochemical Reduction of CO₂

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2019 Oct 1;58(40):14100-14103. doi: 10.1002/anie.201905318. Epub 2019 Aug 29.

Authors

Jiaju Fu^{1

2}, Wenlei Zhu¹, Ying Chen², Zhouyang Yin¹, Yuyang Li¹, Juan Liu², Hongyi Zhang¹, Jun-Jie Zhu², Shouheng Sun¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Brown University, Providence, RI, 02912, USA.
² State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China.

PMID: 31314934
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201905318

Abstract

We report a new strategy to prepare a composite catalyst for highly efficient electrochemical CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂ RR). The composite catalyst is made by anchoring Au nanoparticles on Cu nanowires via 4,4'-bipyridine (bipy). The Au-bipy-Cu composite catalyzes the CO₂ RR in 0.1 m KHCO₃ with a total Faradaic efficiency (FE) reaching 90.6 % at -0.9 V to provide C-products, among which CH₃ CHO (25 % FE) dominates the liquid product (HCOO^- , CH₃ CHO, and CH₃ COO^- ) distribution (75 %). The enhanced CO₂ RR catalysis demonstrated by Au-bipy-Cu originates from its synergistic Au (CO₂ to CO) and Cu (CO to C-products) catalysis which is further promoted by bipy. The Au-bipy-Cu composite represents a new catalyst system for effective CO₂ RR conversion to C-products.

Keywords: CO2 reduction; electrocatalysis; nanocomposites.

Abstract

Grants and funding