Surface hydroxide promotes CO2 electrolysis to ethylene in acidic conditions

Abstract Performing CO 2 reduction in acidic conditions enables high single-pass CO 2 conversion efficiency. However, a faster kinetics of the hydrogen evolution reaction compared to CO 2 reduction limits the selectivity toward multicarbon products. Prior studies have shown that adsorbed hydroxide on the Cu surface promotes CO 2 reduction in neutral and alkaline conditions. We posited that limited adsorbed hydroxide species in acidic CO 2 reduction could contribute to a low selectivity to multicarbon products. Here we report an electrodeposited Cu catalyst that suppresses hydrogen formation and promotes selective CO 2 reduction in acidic conditions. Using in situ time-resolved Raman spectroscopy, we show that a high concentration of CO and OH on the catalyst surface promotes C-C coupling, a finding that we correlate with evidence of increased CO residence time. The optimized electrodeposited Cu catalyst achieves a 60% faradaic efficiency for ethylene and 90% for multicarbon products. When deployed in a slim flow cell, the catalyst attains a 20% energy efficiency to ethylene, and 30% to multicarbon products.