Interface-induced controllable synthesis of Cu2O nanocubes for electroreduction CO2 to C2H4

Electroreduction CO2 to high value-added chemicals is a promising way to mitigate the greenhouse effect while storing the renewable electricity in chemicals. As an important chemical, C2H4 is a desirable product of CO2 reduction but limited by lacking of efficient and durable catalysts. Herein, we proposed an interface-induced method to prepare Cu2O nanocubes with controllable morphology and size. Due to the imidazolyl groups connected to the surface of ionic liquid functionalized graphite sheets (ILGS), Cu2O nanocubes were induced to grow on ILGS to obtain Cu2O/ILGS composites, where the size of Cu2O can be controlled by adjusting the concentration of Cu2+. Interestingly, as the concentration of Cu2+ increases from 12.5 mmol/L to 100 mmol/L, the size of Cu2O nanocubes decreases from 456 nm to 72 nm. As catalyst for CO2 electroreduction in 0.1 M KHCO3 aqueous solution, Cu2O/ILGS-100 (synthesized under 100 mmol/L CuCl2) behaves the best catalysis performance with a high faradic efficiency of C2H4 (31.1%) and long durability at -1.15 V (vs. reversible hydrogen electrode). (c) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.