Coupled Copper–Zinc Catalysts for Electrochemical Reduction of Carbon Dioxide

A catalyst plays a key role in the electrochemical reduction of CO2 to valuable chemicals and fuels. Hence, the development of efficient and inexpensive catalysts has attracted great interest from both the academic and industrial communities. In this work, low-cost catalysts coupling Cu and Zn are designed and prepared with a green microwave-assisted route. The Cu to Zn ratio in the catalysts can be easily tuned by adjusting the precursor solutions. The obtained Cu–Zn catalysts are mainly composed of polycrystalline Cu particles and monocrystalline ZnO nanoparticles. The electrodes with optimized Cu–Zn catalysts show enhanced CO production rates of approximately 200 μmol h−1 cm−2 with respect to those with a monometallic Cu or ZnO catalyst under the same applied potential. At the bimetallic electrodes, ZnO-derived active sites are selective for CO formation and highly conductive Cu favors electron transport in the catalyst layer as well as charge transfer at the electrode/electrolyte interface.