Ni-Al films on glassy carbon electrodes generate an array of oxygenated organics from CO₂

The transformation of CO₂ 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 Ni₃Al on glassy carbon are found to be electrocatalytic for aqueous CO₂ reduction. At-1.38 V vs Ag/AgCl, Ni₃Al 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, Ni₃Al on glassy carbon is the only noncopper-containing material shown to generate C3 products.