Amorphous-Confined Crystalline CuO Nanoflakes for Enhanced Ethylene Production from CO2 Electroreduction

Graphical Carbon dioxide reduction : The rectangular nanoflakes with crystalline/amorphous phase structures that the square nanoblocks are confined in amorphous nanoflakes efficiently enhance the electrocatalytic conversion of CO 2 to ethylene. The electrocatalytic reduction of CO 2 to high value-added chemicals is one of the effective technologies to achieve the goal of carbon neutralization. However, highly selective production of hydrocarbon via electrochemical conversion of CO 2 still has great challenges. Herein, a unique CuO phase composition is constructed that consists of rectangular nanoflakes possessing crystalline/amorphous structures by the facile strategy. Crystalline CuO square nanoblocks are confined in amorphous nanoflakes and form crystalline/amorphous hybrid phase. The results of electrocatalytic CO 2 reduction demonstrate that this crystalline/amorphous CuO material exhibits superior CO 2 conversion ability with ethylene Faradaic efficiency of 58.3 % at −1.08 V vs. RHE, which is ascribed to nanoflake structures and fast electron transfer on the crystalline/amorphous interfaces because of superior conductivity of amorphous CuO. The present research provides an effective route to reconstruct novel crystalline/amorphous interfaces of CuO for catalysis applications.