Enhancing electroreduction CO2 to multi-carbon products by the synergistical effect of controllable pore size and local microenvironment on Y@CuOx catalysts

To enhance the electroreduction of CO2 to multi-carbon products (C2+), it is crucial to optimize both the mass transfer of reactants and the local concentration of the *CO intermediate. However, synergistically creating efficient CO2 transport channels while enriching local *CO intermediates remains a challenge. In this work, we design and synthesize Y-doped copper nanoporous catalysts with different pore size distributions and contact angles to investigate their effects for CO2RR performance, enabling efficient CO2 reduction to C2+ products. Significantly, the Y@CuOx-3 catalyst exhibits impressive C2+ Faraday efficiency of 69.19% in a flow cell at-1.4 V vs. RHE. The experimental results and theoretical calculations show that the porous structure of suitable size can better capture the *CO intermediate to enhance local CO concentration and promote the higher local alkaline microenvironment, and doping of Y makes it more hydrophobic, so that it can inhibit the hydrogen evolution reaction while maximizing the chance of C-C coupling reaction. The significance of this work is to provide a new insight for improving CO2 transport and enhancing local microenvironment to promote signally the electroreduction of CO2 to multi-carbon products.