Fast Screening for Copper-Based Bimetallic Electrocatalysts: Efficient Electrocatalytic Reduction of CO2 to C2+ Products on Magnesium-Modified Copper.

Abstract

Electroreduction of CO2 (CO2 RR) into high value-added chemicals is an attractive route to achieve carbon neutrality. However, the development of an efficient catalyst for CO2 RR is still largely by trial-and-error and is very time-consuming. Herein, we built an electrocatalyst testing platform featuring a home-built automatic flow cell to accelerate the discovery of efficient catalysts. A fast screening of 109 Cu-based bimetallic catalysts in only 55 h identifies Mg combined with Cu as the best electrocatalyst for CO2 to C2+ products. The thus designed Mg-Cu catalyst achieves a Faradaic efficiency (FE) of C2+ products up to 80 % with a current density of 1.0 A cm-2 at -0.77 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE). Systematic experiments with in situ spectroelectrochemistry analyses show that Mg2+ species stabilize Cu+ sites during CO2 RR and promote the CO2 activation, thus enhancing the *CO coverage to promote C-C coupling.