Electrochemical reduction of CO to liquid C2+ with high Faradaic efficiency of amorphous CuO hybrid material wrapped in carbon and silica

Carbon monoxide (CO) is well recognized as one of the key intermediates for carbon dioxide (CO2) electrolytic reduction to C2+ products, which has been a hot research field recently. Developing an efficient catalyst that focuses on achieving C-C coupling is highly important for the production of C2+ products. In the present work, we present a feasible approach via the combination of electrostatic assembly and the hydrothermal method of coupling silicon polyanions and copper salts to build an amorphous copper hybrid material wrapped in carbon-silica, denoted as CuO@C-SiO2-X (where X means preparation temperature), as an efficient electrocatalyst for carbon monoxide reduction mainly to liquid C2+ products. The CuO@C-SiO2-X catalyst demonstrated excellent electrocatalytic activity and selectivity, especially to C2+ liquid products with the highest Faradaic efficiency of 81.5%. Additionally, the catalyst showed good stability. The presence of carbon enhanced electronic conductivity, and the silica protected the amorphous CuO from aggregation into crystalline structures. The present work not only provides an efficient catalyst for CO electrocatalytic reduction to liquid C2+ chemicals but also offers a protocol for building Cu-based catalysts with high selectivity to C2+ products in CO reduction.