Cooperative promotion of electroreduction of CO to n-propanol by *CO enrichment and proton regulation

Abstract

The CO₂/CO electroreduction reaction (CO₂RR/CORR) to liquid products presents an enticing pathway to store intermittent renewable electricity. However, the selectivity for desirable high-value C₃ products, such as n-propanol, remains unsatisfactory in the CO₂RR/CORR. Here, we report that *CO enrichment and proton regulation cooperatively enhance C₁–C₂ coupling by increasing CO pressure and utilizing proton sponge modification, promoting the production of n-propanol over a Cu⁰/Cu⁺ nanosheet catalyst in the CORR. We obtain an impressive faradaic efficiency (FE) of 44.0% ± 2.3% for n-propanol at a low potential of −0.44 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) under 3 bar CO. Experimental results demonstrated that *H intermediates could be regulated by proton sponge modification. In situ characterization combined with density functional theory (DFT) calculations validate that Cu⁺ species exist stably in proton sponge-modified Cu-based catalysts along with appropriate *CO coverage. This design facilitates the potential-determining C₁–C₁ and C₁–C₂ coupling steps and contributes to the n-propanol production.