Enhanced Ethanol Production from CO Electroreduction at Micropores in Nitrogen-Doped Mesoporous Carbon.

Efficient formation of valuable multicarbon products in CO electrochemical reduction is challenging, owing to the difficulty of C-C coupling. Medium micropores embedded in the channel walls of nitrogen-doped ordered mesoporous carbon are found to capably promote ethanol production from CO electroreduction. By scaling up the medium micropore content, the yield of ethanol is increased to 2.3 mmol g  h , far outperforming previously reported state-of-the-art electrocatalysts. The intrinsically higher activity is attributed to the desolvation effect induced by the medium micropores, facilitating the coupling reaction of C intermediates to form ethanol.