The electroreduction of carbon dioxide to hydrocarbons or alcohols could provide sustainable fuels. However, the conversion to, e.g., methanol, has sluggish kinetics, because six electrons/protons have to be transferred per molecule. Highly efficient electrocatalysts are, thus, needed.

Qinggong Zhu, Buxing Han, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences and University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, and colleagues have developed a copper selenide nanocatalyst for the electrochemical reduction of CO₂ to methanol. The team combined CuCl₂⋅2H₂O, Na₂SeO₃, and hydroxylamine to create the catalyst. The protonated amine forms coordination bonds with the Se component and acts as a template for the nanoparticle synthesis.

The obtained nanoparticles were mixed with carbon black and applied to carbon paper to prepare electrodes. These electrodes can be used for the electrochemical reduction of CO₂ to methanol with high current density, a low overpotential, a Faradaic efficiency of 77.6 %. According to the researchers, Cu and Se have cooperative effects for catalyzing the reaction, and other transition metal selenides might also be useful as electrocatalysts for CO₂ reduction.

• Selective electroreduction of carbon dioxide to methanol on copper selenide nanocatalysts,
  Dexin Yang, Qinggong Zhu, Chunjun Chen, Huizhen Liu, Zhimin Liu, Zhijuan Zhao, Xiaoyu Zhang, Shoujie Liu, Buxing Han,
  Nat. Commun. 2019.
  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-08653-9