Silica-copper catalyst interfaces enable carbon-carbon coupling towards ethylene electrosynthesis

Membrane electrode assembly (MEA) electrolyzers offer a means to scale up CO2-to-ethylene electroconversion using renewable electricity and close the anthropogenic carbon cycle. To date, excessive CO2 coverage at the catalyst surface with limited active sites in MEA systems interferes with the carbon-carbon coupling reaction, diminishing ethylene production. With the aid of density functional theory calculations and spectroscopic analysis, here we report an oxide modulation strategy in which we introduce silica on Cu to create active Cu-SiOx interface sites, decreasing the formation energies of OCOH* and OCCOH*-key intermediates along the pathway to ethylene formation. We then synthesize the Cu-SiOx catalysts using one-pot coprecipitation and integrate the catalyst in a MEA electrolyzer. By tuning the CO2 concentration, the Cu-SiOx catalyst based MEA electrolyzer shows high ethylene Faradaic efficiencies of up to 65% at high ethylene current densities of up to 215mAcm(-2); and features sustained operation over 50h. CO2-to-ethylene conversion using renewable electricity provides a sustainable route to produce valuable chemicals. Here, the authors report high ethylene activity of 215mAcm(-2) and selectivity of 65% made possible by silica clusters in copper.