Interface engineering of earth-abundant Cu/In(OH)3 catalysts towards electrochemical reduction of CO2 favoring CO selectivity

Abstract

Interface engineering has been an alternative strategy applied to catalysts, which is desirable for CO2 electrochemical reduction reaction (ECO2RR) to obtain high selectivity for specific products. Herein, we report Cu/In(OH)3 heterogeneous structure catalyst attached on mildly oxidized carbon nanotubes (CNTs) originating from CuO/In(OH)3 via a facile wet hydrolysis precipitation method for ECO2RR. The selectivity of CO can be tuned by slightly adjusting the In/(Cu + In) (YIn) atomic fraction. Typically, high Faradaic efficiency (FE) of CO (89%) with the partial current density of 10.1 mA/cm2 at –1.0 V(versus a reversible hydrogen electrode, RHE) is obtained at YIn = 4.5%, outperforming the most reported Cu-In based catalysts. The strong interaction between Cu and In(OH)3 are responsible to promote FECO. Designing the metal/metal hydroxide electrocatalysts for electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction opens an alternative opportunity for optimizing efficient and selective catalysts for desired products.