Cu-Sn Aerogels for Electrochemical CO<sub>2</sub> Reduction with High CO Selectivity
Yexin Pan,
Muchen Wu,
Ziran Ye,
Haibin Tang,
Zhanglian Hong,
Mingjia Zhi
Affiliations
Yexin Pan
State Key Laboratory of Silicon Material, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, 38 Zheda Road, Hangzhou 310027, China
Muchen Wu
State Key Laboratory of Silicon Material, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, 38 Zheda Road, Hangzhou 310027, China
Ziran Ye
Department of Applied Physics, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, China
Haibin Tang
Key Laboratory of Materials Physics, and Anhui Key Laboratory of Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology, Hefei Institute of Solid State Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, China
Zhanglian Hong
State Key Laboratory of Silicon Material, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, 38 Zheda Road, Hangzhou 310027, China
Mingjia Zhi
Institute for Composites Science Innovation (InCSI), Zhejiang University, 38 Zheda Road, Hangzhou 310027, China
This work reports the synthesis of CuxSny alloy aerogels for electrochemical CO2 reduction catalysts. An in situ reduction and the subsequent freeze-drying process can successfully give CnxSny aerogels with tuneable Sn contents, and such aerogels are composed of three-dimensional architectures made from inter-connected fine nanoparticles with pores as the channels. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations show that the introduction of Sn in Cu aerogels inhibits H2 evolution reaction (HER) activity, while the accelerated CO desorption on the catalyst surface is found at the same time. The porous structure of aerogel also favors exposing more active sites. Counting these together, with the optimized composition of Cu95Sn5 aerogel, the high selectivity of CO can be achieved with a faradaic efficiency of over 90% in a wide potential range (−0.7 V to −1.0 V vs. RHE).
