Ni–Al Films on Glassy Carbon Electrodes Generate an Array of Oxygenated Organics from CO2

The transformation of CO 2 into chemical feedstocks or fuels is an attractive goal, but catalysts capable of generating useful, multicarbon products have been challenging to design. Here, thin films of the intermetallic Ni 3 Al on glassy carbon are found to be electrocatalytic for aqueous CO 2 reduction. At–1.38 V vs Ag/AgCl, Ni 3 Al films produce a range of C1, C2, and C3 oxygenated organic species including 1-propanol and methanol at Faradaic efficiencies that are competitive with single-metal electrodes reported in the literature. To the best of our knowledge, Ni 3 Al on glassy carbon is the only noncopper-containing material shown to generate C3 products.