Cu2O/LDH heterojunction derived from CuMgAl-LDH: Enhanced stability of Cu+ in CO2 electroreduction

Abstract

The unique ability of Cu+ to enhance C-C coupling makes it important in the field of CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) over Cu-based catalyst, while Cu+ is very prone to deactivation. Hereby, we propose a simple and feasible stabilization strategy to stabilize Cu+ species through reducing Cu-Mg-Al hydrotalcite by adding ascorbic acid, which owns stable product selectivity in a span of 6 h at −0.95 V vs.RHE. Characterization results show that the excellent stability is promoted by the heterostructure of Cu2O and hydrotalcite with retained Cu+ species, which derives from Cu2O and slow down the rapid reduction of Cu+ to Cu0.