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Nanocatalysts for Electrochemical Reduction of CO2

A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Electrochemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2019) | Viewed by 11304

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Institute of Electrochemistry, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain
Interests: nanoparticles; electrochemistry; fuel cells; electrocatalysis; CO2 reduction
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
School of Chemistry, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK
Interests: electrocatalysis; nanoparticles; electrochemistry; fuel cells; CO2 reduction; hydrogen and fuel cells; environmental remediation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) to fuels and added-value chemicals is a promising route with which to recycle CO2 efficiently and therefore lower the global carbon footprint.

Regardless of recent progress in the CO2RR, this field still faces challenges related to catalytic activity, selectivity, and durability. In this way, this issue is dedicated to highlighting recent research efforts focused on the design and synthesis of novel, cost-effective, and robust nanostructured materials including (bi-)metals, metal oxides and sulfides, carbon-based materials, and organic frameworks, among others, for electrochemical CO2RR.

We invite colleagues working in these emerging and promising topics of research to submit their original works for publication in this Special Issue.

Dr. José Solla Gullón
Dr. Paramaconi Rodriguez
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • electrocatalysis
  • CO2 reduction reaction
  • nanostructured catalysts
  • fuels
  • added-value chemicals
  • CO2 conversion
  • activity
  • selectivity
  • durability

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 2291 KiB  
Article
Continuous Electrochemical Reduction of CO2 to Formate: Comparative Study of the Influence of the Electrode Configuration with Sn and Bi-Based Electrocatalysts
by Guillermo Díaz-Sainz, Manuel Alvarez-Guerra and Angel Irabien
Molecules 2020, 25(19), 4457; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules25194457 - 28 Sep 2020
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 3948
Abstract
Climate change has become one of the most important challenges in the 21st century, and the electroreduction of CO2 to value-added products has gained increasing importance in recent years. In this context, formic acid or formate are interesting products because they could [...] Read more.
Climate change has become one of the most important challenges in the 21st century, and the electroreduction of CO2 to value-added products has gained increasing importance in recent years. In this context, formic acid or formate are interesting products because they could be used as raw materials in several industries as well as promising fuels in fuel cells. Despite the great number of studies published in the field of the electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 to formic acid/formate working with electrocatalysts of different nature and electrode configurations, few of them are focused on the comparison of different electrocatalyst materials and electrode configurations. Therefore, this work aims at presenting a rigorous and comprehensive comparative assessment of different experimental data previously published after many years of research in different working electrode configurations and electrocatalysts in a continuous mode with a single pass of the inputs through the reactor. Thus, the behavior of the CO2 electroreduction to formate is compared operating with Sn and Bi-based materials under Gas Diffusion Electrodes (GDEs) and Catalyst Coated Membrane Electrodes (CCMEs) configurations. Considering the same electrocatalyst, the use of CCMEs improves the performance in terms of formate concentration and energy consumption. Nevertheless, higher formate rates can be achieved with GDEs because they allow operation at higher current densities of up to 300 mA·cm−2. Bi-based-GDEs outperformed Sn-GDEs in all the figures of merit considered. The comparison also highlights that in CCME configuration, the employ of Bi-based-electrodes enhanced the behavior of the process, increasing the formate concentration by 35% and the Faradaic efficiency by 11%. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanocatalysts for Electrochemical Reduction of CO2)
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15 pages, 2558 KiB  
Article
Electrochemical Reduction of CO2 to Formate on Easily Prepared Carbon-Supported Bi Nanoparticles
by Beatriz Ávila-Bolívar, Leticia García-Cruz, Vicente Montiel and José Solla-Gullón
Molecules 2019, 24(11), 2032; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules24112032 - 28 May 2019
Cited by 54 | Viewed by 6805
Abstract
Herein, the electrochemical reduction of CO2 to formate on carbon-supported bismuth nanoparticles is reported. Carbon-supported Bi nanoparticles (about 10 nm in size) were synthesized using a simple, fast and scalable approach performed under room conditions. The so-prepared Bi electrocatalyst was characterized by [...] Read more.
Herein, the electrochemical reduction of CO2 to formate on carbon-supported bismuth nanoparticles is reported. Carbon-supported Bi nanoparticles (about 10 nm in size) were synthesized using a simple, fast and scalable approach performed under room conditions. The so-prepared Bi electrocatalyst was characterized by different physicochemical techniques, including transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction and subsequently air-brushed on a carbon paper to prepare electrodes. These electrodes were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and also by cyclic voltammetry. Finally, CO2 electroreduction electrolyses were performed at different electrode potentials for 3 h. At the optimal electrode potential (−1.6 V vs AgCl/Ag), the concentration of formate was about 77 mM with a faradaic efficiency of 93 ± 2.5%. A 100% faradaic efficiency was found at a lower potential (−1.5 V vs AgCl/Ag) with a formate concentration of about 55 mM. In terms of stability, we observed that after about 70 h (in 3 h electrolysis experiments at different potentials), the electrode deactivates due to the gradual loss of metal as shown by SEM/EDX analyses of the deactivated electrodes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanocatalysts for Electrochemical Reduction of CO2)
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