Electrochemical reduction of CO₂ provides an ideal approach to convert the greenhouse gas into fuels under mild conditions. Copper electrodes are capable of producing significant amounts of hydrocarbons, but the selectivity to convert CO₂ into methane (CH₄) remains low. Here, we prepared functionalized Cu nanowire electrodes by coating polymers (polydopamine, PDA) and experimentally verified that the functionalized CuNWs indeed shows 2.3 times higher CH₄ selectivity compared with that of CuNWs. The PDA functionalized CuNWs catalyst remains catalytically stable for in excess of 14 hours. We experimentally reveal that the amino groups could be responsible for the capture and delivery of protons for the hydronation of CO* intermediates and phenolic hydroxyl groups for the stabilization of CO* intermediates. The results provide us insights into a new approach to optimize the electrochemical methanation of CO₂ by polymers that contain abundant functional groups.

中文翻译：

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聚多巴胺官能化的铜纳米线，用于增强二氧化碳向甲烷的电还原

电化学还原CO ₂提供了一种在温和条件下将温室气体转化为燃料的理想方法。铜电极能够产生大量的碳氢化合物，但是将CO ₂转化为甲烷（CH ₄）的选择性仍然很低。在这里，我们通过涂覆聚合物（聚多巴胺，PDA）制备了功能化的Cu纳米线电极，并通过实验验证了功能化的CuNWs确实显示出高出2.3倍的CH _4。与CuNWs的选择性相比。PDA官能化的CuNWs催化剂在超过14小时内保持催化稳定。我们实验表明，氨基可能负责质子的捕获和传递，以促进CO *中间体的氢化，酚羟基的作用是稳定CO *中间体。结果为我们提供了一种新方法的见解，该新方法可通过包含大量官能团的聚合物优化CO ₂的电化学甲烷化。