Controlling the Surface Oxidation of Cu Nanowires Improves Their Catalytic Selectivity and Stability toward C Products in CO Reduction.

Copper nanostructures are promising catalysts for the electrochemical reduction of CO because of their unique ability to produce a large proportion of multi-carbon products. Despite great progress, the selectivity and stability of such catalysts still need to be substantially improved. Here, we demonstrate that controlling the surface oxidation of Cu nanowires (CuNWs) can greatly improve their C selectivity and stability. Specifically, we achieve a faradaic efficiency as high as 57.7 and 52.0 % for ethylene when the CuNWs are oxidized by the O from air and aqueous H O , respectively, and both of them show hydrogen selectivity below 12 %. The high yields of C products can be mainly attributed to the increase in surface roughness and the generation of defects and cavities during the electrochemical reduction of the oxide layer. Our results also indicate that the formation of a relatively thick, smooth oxide sheath can improve the catalytic stability by mitigating the fragmentation issue.