@article{Su2025, 
author = {Yingshi Su and Zijian Peng and Junjie Huang and Jialei Li and Jiaying Zhang and Huihui Jiang and Yonghui Cheng and Sirui Deng and Caili Yang and Yanjia Cui and Yibing Song and Zhen Li and Gongwei Wang and Lin Zhuang},
title = {Confinement-enhanced CO2 electroreduction: Yolk-shell Cu@HCS catalyst for high-selectivity synthesis of C2 products},
year = {2025},
journal = {Nano Research},
volume = {18},
number = {8},
pages = {94907710},
keywords = {yolk-shell structure, CO2 reduction, Cu nanoparticles, in situ ATR-SEIRAS, C2 products},
url = {https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.26599/NR.2025.94907710},
doi = {10.26599/NR.2025.94907710},
abstract = {The electrochemical reduction of CO2 to multi-carbon (C2+) products is a promising strategy for sustainable fuel and chemical production and CO2 emission mitigation. However, optimizing *CO intermediate generation and utilization in complex multi-electron systems is crucial for the C2 products, but it remains challenging. Herein, we synthesize a yolk-shell structured Cu@HCS catalyst via hydrothermal synthesis coupled with high-temperature calcination, featuring a unique copper core and hollow carbon shell nanostructure. This architecture significantly enhances the selectivity toward C2 products during electrocatalytic CO2 reduction. The optimized Cu@HCS-2-800 catalyst achieves a Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 69.7% for C2 products at –1.4 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE), markedly surpassing the 30.1% FE of conventional Cu/xc-72 catalyst. Furthermore, the yolk-shell configuration suppresses hydrogen evolution, ensuring superior stability during prolonged operation. In situ attenuated total reflectance-surface enhanced infrared absorption spectroscopy (ATR-SEIRAS) and density functional theory (DFT) analysis reveal that the Cu@HCS-2-800 catalyst leverages spatial confinement effects to retard CO diffusion and promote CO re-adsorption, thereby elevating *CO intermediate coverage to enhance C–C coupling. This work underscores the pivotal role of nanoscale spatial confinement in advancing CO2 electroreduction performance and provides a guidance for designing advanced catalysts with tailored microenvironment.}
}