Electrochemical Reduction of CO2 on Ni- and Pt-Epitaxially Grown Cu(111) Surfaces

Abstract

The electroreduction of CO2 on well-defined M/Cu(111) (M = Ni and Pt) bimetallic surface systems fabricated using molecular beam epitaxy was studied. The total faradic efficiency for CO2 reduction using one-monolayer (ML)-thick Pt epitaxially grown on a Cu(111) substrate (1-ML Pt/Cu(111)) was nearly the same as that for clean Pt(111). In contrast, the 1-ML-thick Ni/Cu(111) system exhibited increased selectivity for CH4 production compared with that of clean Ni(111), which may stem from the geometric tensile strain induced by the underlying Cu(111) substrate. Notably, bimetallic surfaces consisting of 0.1-ML-thick Ni or Pt grown on Cu(111) exhibited significantly different reduction behaviors compared with those of Cu because of the presence of the a small amount of epitaxially grown metal. For the 0.1-ML-thick Ni/Cu(111) system, the total faradaic efficiency for CO2 reduction and the production rate for CO were enhanced compared with those for clean Cu(111), whereas the production of CH4 decreased. In contrast, the total faradaic efficiency was significantly suppressed for the 0.1-ML-thick Pt/Cu(111) bimetallic substrate, with only a very small amount of CH4 production. The difference in the catalytic properties is attributed to the difference in the adsorption energies for CO, which is an intermediate in the electrochemical production of CH4 and C2H4.