Spatial-Confinement Induced Electroreduction of CO and CO2 to Diols on Densely-Arrayed Cu Nanopyramids

Turning carbon dioxide into useful chemicals

31 January 2022

Tiny copper pyramids are effective for catalysing the conversion of carbon monoxide and dioxide into industrially useful compounds such as ethylene glycol.

One way to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels is to make chemicals from carbon monoxide and dioxide. Progress has been made in the electroreduction of these gases to small alcohol molecules such as methanol and ethanol, but it is much more challenging to make larger organic molecules that contain two hydroxyl (OH) groups such as ethylene glycol.

Now, a team of six researchers from the University of Adelaide in Australia has demonstrated that a dense array of copper nanopyramids are effective for producing ethylene glycol from carbon monoxide and dioxide.

Calculations revealed that the spatial confinement by the dense array of nanopyramids plays an important role in the high selectivity of the electrocatalyst.

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References

1. Chemical Science 12, 8079 (2021). doi: 10.1039/d1sc01694f