Abstract
Electrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide to value added multi-carbon products is of great importance and a promising approach to mitigate greenhouse gases. In this work, we report the fabrication of electrodes by depositing Cu over the metallic foils of Cu and Zn, which show high faradic efficiency for the conversion of CO2 to formic acid, acetate, and methanol. The morphology, phase and oxidation state of the Cu were different on the two foils while maintaining the same synthesis steps. The Cu particles embedded on Cu foil (Cu/Cu-foil) are in 3D cuboids form with flat and smooth faces, whereas Cu on Zn foil (Cu/Zn-foil) emerge in the shape of 3D flowers with the club of Cu microspikes grown perpendicularly from a root. For the electrocatalytic conversion of CO2, the Cu/Cu-foil shows a high selectivity for formic acid and ethyl acetate with the highest faradaic efficiency of 78 % at −0.3 V vs RHE, and 64 % at −1.0 V (vs RHE) for the two products, respectively. In contrast, the Cu/Zn-foil displays a high selectivity towards methanol, with the highest faradaic efficiency of 48 % at −1.0 V vs RHE, indicating that the product selectivity can be easily modulated by changing the metallic foil on which the Cu particles are deposited. Both the electrodes, Cu/Cu-foil and Cu/Zn-foil, show long-term stable performance while maintaining the selectivity of the products during CO2 electrocatalytic conversion.
Highlights
Fossil fuels meet ~ 80 % of total energy requirement for human beings owing to a higher current density than other energy systems that has adversely affected the environment by increasing the CO2 emissions resulting in severe environmental challenges, as CO2 is considered to be one of the major contributors to global warming [1,2,3,4]
Simultaneous efforts are underway in both the directions, as green energy technologies based on environmentally friendly energy resource such as solar, wind, tidal and biomass energies are growing rapidly; whereas many research groups are attempting to convert the atmospheric CO2 into useful chemicals such as formaldehyde, formic acid, alcohols, methane, and CO via thermal, photo- or electro-catalytic routes [5,6,7,8,9,10,11]
Effective and robust electrodes for CO2 electroreduction were fabricated by in-situ growth of copper microstructures on copper and zinc foils by utilizing the hydrothermal synthesis technique
Summary
Fossil fuels meet ~ 80 % of total energy requirement for human beings owing to a higher current density than other energy systems that has adversely affected the environment by increasing the CO2 emissions resulting in severe environmental challenges, as CO2 is considered to be one of the major contributors to global warming [1,2,3,4]. Considering the worldwide total energy consumption trends, it is challenging to stop using fossil fuels until developing and adopting environmentally clean energy systems. Another possible approach is to capture and sequestrate CO2 geologically or to convert CO2 into useful chemicals such as low-carbon fuels and commodity compounds. Simultaneous efforts are underway in both the directions, as green energy technologies based on environmentally friendly energy resource such as solar, wind, tidal and biomass energies are growing rapidly; whereas many research groups are attempting to convert the atmospheric CO2 into useful chemicals such as formaldehyde, formic acid, alcohols, methane, and CO via thermal, photo- or electro-catalytic routes [5,6,7,8,9,10,11]
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