(Invited) The Electrochemical CO2 Reduction Reaction: Understanding the Selectivity of the Cu Catalyst

Abstract

Electrochemical CO2 and CO reduction holds the promise to be a cornerstone for sustainable production of fuels and chemicals. However, it is a complex reaction which give multiple different products depending on metal catalyst [1]. The product distributions on the metals catalyst can be understood by ignoring the reaction pathways and grouping the multiple metal catalyst by their product selectivity [2]. It shows that, the unique copper catalyst, as the only metal catalyst has the ability to bind CO* while not having hydrogen under potential deposited (UPD), which results in a high value multiple-carbon product distribution. Furthermore, the exotic product distribution has been shown to be dependent on the exact crystal orientation of the Cu facets for the Cu catalyst [3,4]. Consequently, understanding and improving the product selectivity of the Cu catalyst is a complex property to understand.In this talk I will discuss the properties of the Cu catalyst: (1) How is the products from the Cu catalyst facets related to each other and how they can be grouped. (2) How can descriptors and models be built to understand and guide the product distribution of the Cu catalyst toward selective high value products [5].[1] Y. Hori et. al., Journal of the Chemical Society, Faraday Transactions, 1989, 85, 2309-2326.[2] A. Bagger et. al., ChemPhysChem, 2017, 18, 3266–3273.[3] Y. Hori et. al., Journal of Molecular Catalysis A: Chemical, 2003, 199, 39-47.[4] K. J. P. Schouten et. al., Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2012, 134, 9864-9867.[5] A. Bagger et. al., ACS Catal. 2019, 9, 9, 7894–7899.