Efficient electrocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide to ethylene on copper–antimony bimetallic alloy catalyst

The exploration of efficient electrocatalysts for the reduction of CO2 to C2H4 is of significant importance but is also a challenging subject. Cu-based bimetallic catalysts are extremely promising for efficient CO2 reduction. In this work, we synthesize a series of porous bimetallic Cu–Sb alloys with different compositions for the catalytic reduction of CO2 to C2H4. It is demonstrated that the alloy catalysts are much more efficient than the pure Cu catalyst. The performance of the alloy catalysts depended strongly on the composition. Further, the alloy with a Cu:Sb ratio of 10:1 yielded the best results; it exhibited a high C2H4 Faradaic efficiency of 49.7% and a high current density of 28.5 mA cm−2 at −1.19 V vs. a reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) in 0.1 M KCl solution. To the best of our knowledge, the electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 to C2H4 using Cu–Sb alloys as catalysts has not been reported. The excellent performance of the porous alloy catalyst is attributed to its favorable electronic configuration, large surface area, high CO2 adsorption rate, and fast charge transfer rate.