@article{Chen2025, 
author = {Yuan Chen and Shanshan Wu and Yue Zhai and Huizhi Li and Jiamin Zhu and Nan Zhang and Yuting Zhu and Zhuoyue Hou and Li An and Pinxian Xi},
title = {CeO2-promoted spinel structural transformation enables CO2 electroreduction to C2+ products},
year = {2025},
journal = {Nano Research},
volume = {18},
number = {10},
pages = {94907898},
keywords = {CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR), spinel, heterointerface, CeO2, structure modulation},
url = {https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.26599/NR.2025.94907898},
doi = {10.26599/NR.2025.94907898},
abstract = {Electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) has received great attention in the past few decades as a promising process for reducing CO2 emissions and producing high-value chemicals. However, the rational design of catalysts for CO2RR continues to represent a significant challenge; hence, it is essential to understand the structure–property relationship and how catalysts facilitate CO2 conversion. Herein, the tetrahedral site occupancy and octahedral site occupancy of spinel CuAl2O4 were modulated by constructing CuAl2O4/CeO2 heterointerface, and the effect on CO2RR performance was further investigated. In this work, we demonstrated that the octahedral site occupancy increases after constructing CuAl2O4/CeO2 heterointerface, leading to a significant improvement in the catalyst’s ability to absorb and activate CO2 and enhance *CO coverage. Meanwhile, the unique oxyphilic property of CeO2 enhances OH coverage and maintains the local pH on the catalyst surface. Ultimately, CuAl2O4/CeO2 achieved 70.4% multi-carbon (C2+) products Faraday efficiency (FE) in the flow cell and operated stably for over 35 h at a current density of 200 mA·cm−2 under 1 M KOH. CuAl2O4/CeO2 exhibits completely different CO2RR performance compared to pure CuAl2O4, providing new insights into accurate regulation of spinel structure.}
}