Electrochemical Reduction of CO to HCOOH over Copper Catalysts.

Although great progress has been made in the field of electrochemical CO reduction reaction (eCORR), inducing product selectivity is still difficult. We herein report that a thiocyanate ion (SCN) switched the product selectivity of copper catalysts for eCORR in an H-cell. A cuprous thiocyanate-derived Cu catalyst was found to exhibit excellent HCOOH selectivity (faradaic efficiency = 70-88%) over a wide potential range (-0.66 to -0.95 V vs RHE). Furthermore, it was revealed that the formation of CO and CH over commercial copper electrodes could be dramatically suppressed with the presence of SCN, switching to HCOOH. Density functional theory calculations disclosed that SCN made the formation of HCOO* easier than COOH* on Cu (211), facilitating the HCOOH generation. Our results provide a new insight into eCORR and will be helpful in the development of cheap electrocatalysts for specific utilization.