Dendritic copper microstructured electrodeposits for efficient and selective electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide into C1 and C2 hydrocarbons

Abstract Here, we report synthesis of copper microstructures-based electro-catalyst with controlled morphologies and crystallinity via a rudimentary simple and green electrochemical dissolution method. The variations in the growth pattern of the dendritic shaped Cu microstructures were studied to understand the evolution of Cu dendrites with respect to several electrolysis parameters viz. applied bias voltage, concentration of organic additives, i.e. L-ascorbic acid, and electrolysis time and temperature. We show that these microstructures demonstrate efficient and selective electrochemical conversion of CO2 into CO along with methane and ethane from CO2-saturated moistened di-methyl sulfoxide (DMSO) electrolyte solution. Our results establish that the selectivity for C1 or C2 hydrocarbons (methane or ethane) as a major product can be tuned systematically by altering the extent of branching in dendrite microstructures as well as the extent of exposure of (111) and (200) facets. The production of C1 and C2 hydrocarbons along with CO in the present study can be ascribed to the availability of protons from the residual water (