Copper/Carbon Heterogenous Interfaces for Enhanced Selective Electrocatalytic Reduction of CO to Formate.

Electrochemical reduction of CO (CO RR) to formate is a promising route to prepare value-added chemical. Developing low-cost and efficient electrocatalysts with high product selectivity is still a grand challenge. Herein, a novel Cu anchored on hollow carbon spheres catalysts (HCS/Cu-x, x represents the mass of CuCl added in the system) is designed with controllable copper/carbon heterogenous interfaces. Rich copper/carbon heterogenous interfaces and hollow structure of optimized HCS/Cu-0.12 catalyst are beneficial to charge transmission. Compared with the CO RR occurred in aqueous electrolyte over Cu-based catalyst that has been reported to date, it exhibits highest formate Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 82.4% with a current density of 26 mA cm and remarkable stability in a H-cell.