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Copper is distinctive in electrocatalyzing reduction of CO 2 into various energy-dense forms, but it often suffers from limited product selectivity including ethanol in competition with ethylene. Here, we describe systematically designed, bimetallic electrocatalysts based on copper/gold heterojunctions with a faradaic efficiency toward ethanol of 60% at currents in excess of 500 mA cm −2 . In the modified catalyst, the ratio of ethanol to ethylene is enhanced by a factor of 200 compared to copper catalysts. Analysis by ATR-IR measurements under operating conditions, and by computational simulations, suggests that reduction of CO 2 at the copper/gold heterojunction is dominated by generation of the intermediate OCCOH*. The latter is a key contributor in the overall, asymmetrical electrohydrogenation of CO 2 giving ethanol rather than ethylene.

Electrocatalytic CO2 reduction powered by renewable electricity has been considered as a promising approach for sustainable energy storage and chemicals production. Herein, ultrathin few-layer SnO2 nanosheets exposed with (001) facets were synthesized and exhibited a rather broad potential window (0.8 V) for selective CO2 conversion to formate. Both DFT calculations and operando spectroscopic characterizations were carried out to identify key intermediate *OCHO. Systematically tailoring microenvironment in the catalyst layer of gas diffusion electrode (GDE) indicate that both flexible Nafion and solid polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) nanoparticles are essential to create abundant and robust triple-phase boundaries (TPB) with more active sites, where CO2 and H2O meet at nanosheet surface to output a high formate partial current density of 380 mA·cm-2 with the selectivity of 88.4%. Moreover, such novel Nafion/PTFE/SnO2 TPB porous structures above largely enhance the single-pass carbon efficiency up to 29.3% in 1 M KOH. This study implies that engineering TPB active sites is an effective approach to the design of advanced CO2 electrolyzers.

As an energy-intensive industry, the chlor-alkali process has caused numerous environmental issues due to heavy electricity consumption and pollution. Chlor-alkali industry has been upgraded from mercury, diaphragm electrolytic cell, to ion exchange membrane (IEM) electrolytic cells. However, several challenges, such as the selectivity of the anodic reaction, sluggish kinetics of alkaline hydrogen evolution, degradation of membranes, the reasonable design of electrolytic cell structure, remain to be addressed. For these reasons, this paper mainly reviews the research progress of the chlor-alkali industry from materials to devices, including hydrogen evolution anode, chlorine evolution cathode, IEM, and electrolytic cell system. Finally, the research directions and prospects in the chlor-alkali industry are proposed for its further improvement.

Vanadium pentoxide (V 2 O 5 )/molybdenum trioxide (MoO 3 ) composites with different molar ratios of vanadium (V) to molybdenum (Mo) were synthesized via a simple electrospinning technique. The photocatalytic activity of the composites were evaluated by their ability to photodegrade methylene blue and dimethyl phthalate (DMP) under visible-light irradiation. Compared with pure V 2 O 5 and MoO 3 , the V 2 O 5 /MoO 3 composites showed enhanced visible-light photocatalytic activity because of a V 3 d impurity energy level and the formation of heterostructures at the interface between V 2 O 5 and MoO 3 . The optimal molar ratio of V to Mo in the V 2 O 5 /MoO 3 composites was found to be around 1/2. Furthermore, high-performance liquid chromatographic monitoring revealed that phthalic acid was the main intermediate in the photocatalytic degradation process of DMP.

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