Selective Increase in CO₂ Electroreduction to Ethanol Activity at Nanograin-Boundary-Rich Mixed Cu(I)/Cu(0) Sites via Enriching Co-Adsorbed CO and Hydroxyl Species

Selective producing ethanol from CO₂ electroreduction is highly demanded, yet the competing ethylene generation route is commonly more thermodynamically preferred. Herein, we reported an efficient CO₂-to-ethanol conversion (53.5 % faradaic efficiency at −0.75 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (vs. RHE)) over an oxide-derived nanocubic catalyst featured with abundant “embossment-like” structured grain-boundaries. The catalyst also attains a 23.2 % energy efficiency to ethanol within a flow cell reactor. In situ spectroscopy and electrochemical analysis identified that these dualphase Cu(I) and Cu(0) sites stabilized by grain-boundaries are very robust over the operating potential window, which maintains a high concentration of co-adsorbed *CO and hydroxyl (*OH) species. Theoretical calculations revealed that the presence of *OH_ad not only promote the easier dimerization of *CO to form *OCCO (ΔG~0.20 eV) at low overpotentials but also preferentially favor the key *CHCOH intermediate hydrogenation to *CHCHOH (ethanol pathway) while suppressing its dehydration to *CCH (ethylene pathway), which is believed to determine the remarkable ethanol selectivity. Such imperative intermediates associated with the bifurcation pathway were directly distinguished by isotope labelling in situ infrared spectroscopy. Our work promotes the understanding of bifurcating mechanism of CO₂ER-to-hydrocarbons more deeply, providing a feasible strategy for the design of efficient ethanol-targeted catalysts.