Electro-derived Cu-Cu2O nanocluster from LDH for stable and selective C2 hydrocarbons production from CO2 electrochemical reduction

Recently, CO2 conversion by electrochemical tool into value-added chemicals has been considered as one of the most promising strategies to offer sustainable development in energy and environment. In this contribution, we investigated electro-derived composites from Cu-based layered double hydroxide (LDH) for CO2 electrochemical reduction. The Cu-Cu2O based nanocomposite (HPR-LDH) were derived by using electro-strategy from LDH having the stability up to 20 h and selectivity toward C2H4 with faraday efficiency up to 36% by significantly suppressing CH4 and H2 with respect to bulk Cu foil. A highly negative reduction potential derived catalyst (HPR-LDH) maintained long-term stability for the selective production of ethylene over methane, and a small amount of Cu2O was still observed on the catalyst surface after CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR). Moreover, such unique strategy for electro-derived composite from LDH having small nanoparticles stacked each other grown on layered structure, would provide new insight to improve durability of OCu combination catalysts for CC coupling products during electrochemical CO2 conversion by suppressing HER. The XRD, SEM, ESR, and XPS analyses confirmed that the long-term ethylene selectivity of HPR-LDH is due to the presence of subsurface oxygen. The designed composite catalyst significantly enhances the stability and selectivity, and also decreases the over potential for CO2 electro-reduction. We predict that the new designed LDH 2D-derived composites may attract new insight for transition metal and may open up a new direction for known structural properties of selective catalyst synthesis regarding effective CO2 reduction reaction.