中国科学技术大学高敏锐团队报道，高张力铜浓缩稀释的阳离子用于选择性质子交换膜CO₂电解。2025年1月14日出版的《德国应用化学》杂志发表了这项成果。

在酸中，电解二氧化碳（CO₂）为克服碱性和中性电解质中的二氧化碳损失，提供了一条有希望的途径，但需要浓碱阳离子（典型≥3 M）来缓解低pH和高析氢反应（HER）速率之间的权衡，从而引发盐沉淀。

在该研究中，课题组研究人员报告了一种解决这一问题的策略，通过在铜（Cu）催化剂中引入拉伸应变，该催化剂可以在pH为1的具有1 M钾离子电解质中选择性地将二氧化碳还原为有价值的多碳产物，特别是乙烯。该研究团队发现张力应变的Cu创造了一个富电子的表面，浓缩了稀释的钾离子，有助于CO₂活化和HER抑制。

使用该催化剂，在质子交换膜电解槽中，在400mA·cm^-2和3.1伏的电池电压下，乙烯法拉第效率（FE）在100小时内保持在44.3%。此外，研究者还在一个集成系统中，展示了用合成的乙烯选择性电合成环氧乙烷的方法。

附：英文原文

Title: Highly Tension-Strained Copper Concentrates Diluted Cations for Selective Proton-Exchange Membrane CO2 Electrolysis

Author: Min-Rui Gao, Ye-Cheng Li, Xiao-Long Zhang, Xiao-Lin Tai, Xue-Peng Yang, Peng-Cheng Yu, Shi-Chen Dong, Li-Ping Chi, Zhi-Zheng Wu, Yu-Cai Zhang, Shu-Ping Sun, Pu-Gan Lu, Lei Zhu, Fei-Yue Gao, Yue Lin

Issue&Volume: 2025-01-14

Abstract: Electrolysis of carbon dioxide (CO2) in acid offers a promising route to overcome CO2 loss in alkaline and neutral electrolytes, but requires concentrated alkali cations (typical ≥3 M) to mitigate the trade-off between low pH and high hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) rate, causing salt precipitation. Here we report a strategy to resolve this problem by introducing tensile strain in a copper (Cu) catalyst, which can selectively reduce CO2 to valuable multicarbon products, particularly ethylene, in a pH 1 electrolyte with 1 M potassium ions. We find that the tension-strained Cu creates an electron-rich surface that concentrates diluted potassium ions, contributing to CO2 activation and HER suppression. With this catalyst, we show constant ethylene Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 44.3% over 100 hours at 400 mA cm-2 and a cell voltage of 3.1 volts in a proton-exchange membrane electrolyser. Moreover, selective electrosynthesis of ethylene oxide using the as-produced ethylene was demonstrated in an integrated system.

DOI: 10.1002/anie.202422054

Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202422054