Dynamically Reconstructed Triple-Copper-Vacancy Associates Confined in Cu Nanowires Enabling High-Rate and Selective CO₂ Electroreduction to C₂₊ Products.

Abstract

Electrochemically reconstructed Cu-based catalysts always exhibit enhanced CO₂ electroreduction performance; however, it still remains ambiguous whether the reconstructed Cu vacancies have a substantial impact on CO₂-to-C₂₊ reactivity. Herein, Cu vacancies are first constructed through electrochemical reduction of Cu-based nanowires, in which high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy image manifests the formation of triple-copper-vacancy associates with different concentrations, confirmed by positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy. In situ attenuated total reflection-surface enhanced infrared absorption spectroscopy discloses the triple-copper-vacancy associates favor *CO adsorption and fast *CO dimerization. Moreover, density-functional-theory calculations unravel the triple-copper-vacancy associates endow the nearby Cu sites with enriched and disparate local charge density, which enhances the *CO adsorption and reduces the CO-CO coupling barrier, affirmed by the decreased *CO dimerization energy barrier by 0.4 eV. As a result, the triple-copper-vacancy associates confined in Cu nanowires achieve a high Faradaic efficiency of over 80% for C₂₊ products in a wide current density range of 400-800 mA cm^-2, outperforming most reported Cu-based electrocatalysts.