【Frontiers in HaiChuan Chemical Technology】Breakthrough in electrocatalytic production of ethylene from carbon dioxide

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The 25th National \"Safety Production Month\" in 2026: Everyone talks about safety, and everyone knows how to handle emergencies; identifying and addressing risks and hazards. -------------------------------------------------- Recently, a research team led by the CCUS Center at the Beijing Institute of Low-Carbon Clean Energy of the **Energy Group has made an important breakthrough in the field of electrocatalytic production of ethylene from carbon dioxide. The relevant results were published in German Applied Chemistry. 　　The traditional method of producing ethylene relies heavily on fossil fuels, resulting in high energy consumption and significant carbon dioxide emissions. Electrocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide to ethylene using green electricity is an important cutting-edge technology for the low-carbon development of coal chemical industry. However, the core copper-based catalyst of this technology is highly prone to uncontrolled dynamic structural restructuring at reduction potentials, resulting in severe degradation of catalytic selectivity and long-term stability. 　　To address this challenge, researchers innovatively proposed a new strategy for regulating \"crystal orientation entropy,\" overcoming the bottleneck of poor selectivity and stability caused by the uncontrollable dynamic restructuring of copper-based catalysts during electroreduction, thereby enabling the efficient and stable synthesis of ethylene at industrial current densities. This study establishes a new paradigm for the rational design of catalysts, ranging from data mining to the regulation of orientation entropy, providing new insights to advance the technology of electrocatalytic conversion of carbon dioxide into high-value chemicals. At present, the electrocatalysis team at the CCUS Center of the Low-Carbon Institute is, building on the preliminary work regarding catalyst design and mechanism research, further optimizing the design of membrane electrode assemblies and electrochemical stacks. It is also working together with the Ninghai Power Plant of Zhejiang Company to carry out on-site industrial trials for the electrochemical conversion of hundreds of tons of carbon dioxide into high-value chemicals.