On the nature of Cu-carbon interaction through N-modification for enhanced ethanol synthesis from syngas and methanol.

Direct conversion of syngas into ethanol is an attractive process because of its short route and high-added value, but remains an enormous challenge due to the low selectivity caused by unclear active sites. Here, the Cu(111) supported N-modified graphene fragments CN/Cu(111) ( = 0-2) are demonstrated to be an efficient catalyst for fabricating ethanol from syngas and methanol. Our results suggest that the Cu-carbon interaction not only facilitates CO activation, but also significantly affects the adsorption stability of C intermediates and finally changes the fundamental reaction mechanism.