Room-temperature liquid metal synthesis of nanoporous copper-indium heterostructures for efficient carbon dioxide reduction to syngas

Nanoporous metals show promising performances in electrochemical catalysis. In this paper, we report a self-supporting bimetallic porous heterogeneous indium/copper structure synthesized with eutectic gallium-indium (EGaIn) material on copper substrate. This nanoporous copper-indium heterostructure catalyst exhibits excellent performance the reduction of carbon dioxide to syngas. The ratio H2/CO is tunable from 0.47 2.0 by changing working potentials. highly stable, showing 96% maintenance current density after 70-h continuous test. Density functional theory calculations reveal that interface induces charge redistribution within surface, leading formation two distinct active sites, namely, Cuδ and Cu0, enabling high-performance generation CO H2. work provides new strategy for obtaining metal electrode catalysts.