(Invited) Novel Nanostructured Catalyst Approaches for CO2 Electroreduction

Abstract

High-surface area catalysts are crucial for electrochemical devices that rely on kinetically-limited electrochemical reactions. Two commonly used approaches to increase catalyst surface area include (1) placement of catalyst nanoparticles on high surface area support and (2) synthesis of highly porous unsupported catalyst structures. In this presentation, we will discuss both approaches along with several previously unexpected phenomena that we had discovered and, eventually, used to highly selectively electrochemically reduce CO2 to C2H4 [1, 2]. Nanostructured supports that were selected for CO2 electroreduction studies include reduced graphene oxide (RGO), single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) and onion-like carbon (OLC) [3]. These three supports share some common features, such as good chemical and thermal stabilities and high specific surface areas. Cu nanoparticles were deposited on the three supports using traditional wet chemistry methods. For synthesis of highly porous unsupported Cu structures, a scalable surficial support method was developed [4, 5] that led to production of Cu nanoparticles with the optimal cubic morphology [6].