Strain in Copper/Ceria Heterostructure Promotes Electrosynthesis of Multicarbon Products.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36574462.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/acsnano.2c08453.
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Abstract
Elastic strains in metallic catalysts induce enhanced selectivity for carbon dioxide reduction (CO<sub>2</sub>R) toward valuable multicarbon (C<sub>2+</sub>) products. However, under working conditions, the structure of catalysts inevitably undergoes reconstruction, hardly retaining the initial strain. Herein, we present a metal/metal oxide synthetic strategy to introduce and maintain the tensile strain in a copper/ceria heterostructure, enabled by the presence of a thin interface layer of Cu<sub>2</sub>O/CeO<sub>2</sub>. The tensile strain in the copper domain and deficient electron environment around interfacial Cu sites resulted in strengthened adsorption of carbonaceous intermediates and promoted *CO dimerization. The strain effect in the copper/ceria heterostructure leads to an improved C<sub>2+</sub> selectivity with a maximum Faradaic efficiency of 76.4% and a half-cell power conversion efficiency of 49.1%. The fundamental insights gained from this system can facilitate the rational design of heterostructure catalysts for CO<sub>2</sub>R.