- Li, Jun;
- Che, Fanglin;
- Pang, Yuanjie;
- Zou, Chengqin;
- Howe, Jane Y;
- Burdyny, Thomas;
- Edwards, Jonathan P;
- Wang, Yuhang;
- Li, Fengwang;
- Wang, Ziyun;
- De Luna, Phil;
- Dinh, Cao-Thang;
- Zhuang, Tao-Tao;
- Saidaminov, Makhsud I;
- Cheng, Shaobo;
- Wu, Tianpin;
- Finfrock, Y Zou;
- Ma, Lu;
- Hsieh, Shang-Hsien;
- Liu, Yi-Sheng;
- Botton, Gianluigi A;
- Pong, Way-Faung;
- Du, Xiwen;
- Guo, Jinghua;
- Sham, Tsun-Kong;
- Sargent, Edward H;
- Sinton, David
The electrochemical reduction of carbon monoxide is a promising approach for the renewable production of carbon-based fuels and chemicals. Copper shows activity toward multi-carbon products from CO reduction, with reaction selectivity favoring two-carbon products; however, efficient conversion of CO to higher carbon products such as n-propanol, a liquid fuel, has yet to be achieved. We hypothesize that copper adparticles, possessing a high density of under-coordinated atoms, could serve as preferential sites for n-propanol formation. Density functional theory calculations suggest that copper adparticles increase CO binding energy and stabilize two-carbon intermediates, facilitating coupling between adsorbed *CO and two-carbon intermediates to form three-carbon products. We form adparticle-covered catalysts in-situ by mediating catalyst growth with strong CO chemisorption. The new catalysts exhibit an n-propanol Faradaic efficiency of 23% from CO reduction at an n-propanol partial current density of 11 mA cm-2.