Wu, JingjieMa, SichaoSun, JingGold, Jake I.Tiwary, ChandraSekharKim, ByoungsuZhu, LingyangChopra, NitinOdeh, Ihab N.Vajtai, RobertYu, Aaron Z.Luo, RaymondLou, JunDing, GuqiaoKenis, Paul J.A.Ajayan, Pulickel M.2017-01-302017-01-302016Wu, Jingjie, Ma, Sichao, Sun, Jing, et al.. "A metal-free electrocatalyst for carbon dioxide reduction to multi-carbon hydrocarbons and oxygenates." <i>Nature Communications,</i> 7, (2016) Springer Nature: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13869.https://hdl.handle.net/1911/93816Electroreduction of carbon dioxide into higher-energy liquid fuels and chemicals is a promising but challenging renewable energy conversion technology. Among the electrocatalysts screened so far for carbon dioxide reduction, which includes metals, alloys, organometallics, layered materials and carbon nanostructures, only copper exhibits selectivity towards formation of hydrocarbons and multi-carbon oxygenates at fairly high efficiencies, whereas most others favour production of carbon monoxide or formate. Here we report that nanometre-size N-doped graphene quantum dots (NGQDs) catalyse the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide into multi-carbon hydrocarbons and oxygenates at high Faradaic efficiencies, high current densities and low overpotentials. The NGQDs show a high total Faradaic efficiency of carbon dioxide reduction of up to 90%, with selectivity for ethylene and ethanol conversions reaching 45%. The C2 and C3 product distribution and production rate for NGQD-catalysed carbon dioxide reduction is comparable to those obtained with copper nanoparticle-based electrocatalysts.engThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material.A metal-free electrocatalyst for carbon dioxide reduction to multi-carbon hydrocarbons and oxygenatesJournal articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13869