Authors: Yong Yan, Huan Zhou, Tongxian Li, Dong Wang, Peter Schaaf, Guangsheng Guo, Xiayan Wang
Published: 2025-04-21
Source: Full article
AbstractThe development of effective strategies to enhance the activity and selectivity of Cu‐based catalysts for the CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) remains a critical challenge, particularly on relatively inert Cu facets that are highly active in the competitive hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). In this study, a series of Cu‐M (M = Au, Ag, Pd) bimetallic tandem interfaces are fabricated on Cu nanocolumn arrays (Cu NCAs) with predominantly exposed Cu (200) facets. These interfaces excited a significant number of Cu+ species and modulated the adsorption behavior of critical intermediates for CO2RR, resulting in improved CO2RR activity and a substantial reduction in the competitive HER. Notably, the Cu‐Au, Cu‐Ag, and Cu‐Pd NCAs displayed excellent selectivity for C2H4, CO, and HCOOH products, with optimized faradaic efficiency (FE) of ≈43.2, ≈48.0, and ≈50.7%, respectively. According to in situ spectroscopic analysis, each Cu‐M interface exhibited distinct catalytic pathways: Cu‐Au favored *COOH and *CO adsorption followed by C‐C coupling for C2H4 production, Cu‐Ag promoted *CO desorption for CO generation, and Cu‐Pd facilitated *OCHO formation for HCOOH production. This study provides a strategy to design high‐performance and more practical bimetallic Cu‐based catalytic electrodes by directly modifying various commercial Cu substrates.