N-doped reduced graphene oxide supported Cu2O nanocubes as high active catalyst for CO2 electroreduction to C2H4

Abstract Electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction (CO 2 RR) to high value-added chemicals is a promising technology to address greenhouse effect and energy challenges. As ethylene is a desirable product of CO 2 RR with great economic value, herein, we proposed a facile method to in situ loading cuprous oxide (Cu 2 O) nanocubes on nitrogen doped reduced graphene oxide (NRGO) to fabricate a Cu 2 O/NRGO composite under ambient conditions, which exits a high faradaic efficiency of ethylene (19.7%) at −1.4 V ( vs. reversible hydrogen electrode) with stable current density of 12 mA cm −2 . The mass activity of Cu 2 O supported on NRGO towards C 2 H 4 formation reaches as high as 136.1 mmol h −1  g −1 , which is more than 24-folds of pristine Cu 2 O. SEM images reveal that Cu 2 O with perfect cubic morphology are highly dispersed on NRGO, promoting the exposure of active sites for CO 2 RR. Additionally, the pyridinic-N in NRGO was supposed to behave synergistic effect with Cu 2 O, leading to a clearly improvement of activity and durability of Cu 2 O for electrocatalytic CO 2 reduction to ethylene. Our work provides a useful strategy to enhance the catalytic performance of copper catalysts for CO 2 RR by using nitrogen doped carbon materials as supports.