A Highly Porous Copper Electrocatalyst for Carbon Dioxide Reduction

Electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO₂ ) is an appealing approach toward tackling climate change associated with atmospheric CO₂ emissions. This approach uses CO₂ as the carbon feedstock to produce value-added chemicals, resulting in a carbon-neutral (or even carbon-negative) process for chemical production. Many efforts have been devoted to the development of CO₂ electrolysis devices that can be operated at industrially relevant rates; however, limited progress has been made, especially for valuable C₂₊ products. Herein, a nanoporous copper CO₂ reduction catalyst is synthesized and integrated into a microfluidic CO₂ flow cell electrolyzer. The CO₂ electrolyzer exhibits a current density of 653 mA cm^-2 with a C₂₊ product selectivity of ≈62% at an applied potential of -0.67 V (vs reversible hydrogen electrode). The highly porous electrode structure facilitates rapid gas transport across the electrode-electrolyte interface at high current densities. Further investigations on electrolyte effects reveal that the surface pH value is substantially different from the pH of bulk electrolyte, especially for nonbuffering near-neutral electrolytes when operating at high currents.