Revealing CO(2) dissociation pathways at vicinal copper (997) interfaces

Size- and shape-tailored copper (Cu) nanocrystals can offer vicinal planes for facile carbon dioxide (CO(2)) activation. Despite extensive reactivity benchmarks, a correlation between CO(2) conversion and morphology structure has not yet been established at vicinal Cu interfaces. Herein, ambient pressure scanning tunneling microscopy reveals step-broken Cu nanocluster evolutions on the Cu(997) surface under 1 mbar CO(2)(g). The CO(2) dissociation reaction produces carbon monoxide (CO) adsorbate and atomic oxygen (O) at Cu step-edges, inducing complicated restructuring of the Cu atoms to compensate for increased surface chemical potential energy at ambient pressure. The CO molecules bound at under-coordinated Cu atoms contribute to the reversible Cu clustering with the pressure gap effect, whereas the dissociated oxygen leads to irreversible Cu faceting geometries. Synchrotron-based ambient pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy identifies the chemical binding energy changes in CO-Cu complexes, which proves the characterized real-space evidence for the step-broken Cu nanoclusters under CO(g) environments. Our in situ surface observations provide a more realistic insight into Cu nanocatalyst designs for efficient CO(2) conversion to renewable energy sources during C(1) chemical reactions.