Boosting CO₂ electroreduction to C₂₊ products on fluorine-doped copper

Electrochemical reduction of CO₂ by renewable electricity offers a promising way to settle excessive greenhouse gases and achieve carbon neutrality under a mild environment. Cu-based catalysts have a unique catalytic activity towards multicarbon (C₂₊) products in the CO₂ electroreduction reaction and are widely studied to promote the corresponding selectivity and activity. Here we report a F-doped Cu (F-Cu) catalyst to improve C₂₊ products in CO₂ electroreduction. A high C₂₊ product (mainly ethylene and ethanol) faradaic efficiency of 70.4% was achieved on the F-Cu catalyst with a high current density (above 400 mA cm⁻²) in the flow-cell system. The in situ surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy results and electrochemical performance analysis demonstrated that CO₂ could be reduced into CO at low potentials and the adsorption of CO could be strengthened on F-Cu, which is beneficial to the subsequent C-C coupling step and formation of the C₂₊ products.