TY - JOUR
T1 - Investigation into the Re-Arrangement of Copper Foams Pre-and Post-CO2 Electrocatalysis
AU - Rudd, Jennifer A.
AU - Hernandez-Aldave, Sandra
AU - Kazimierska, Ewa
AU - Hamdy, Louise B.
AU - Bain, Odin J.E.
AU - Barron, Andrew R.
AU - Andreoli, Enrico
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: This work is part of the Reducing Industrial Carbon Emissions (RICE) and Flexible Integrated Energy Systems (FLEXIS) research operations funded by the Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO) through the Welsh Government. Financial support was also provided by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through the SUSTAIN Manufacturing Hub (EP/S018107/1) and grant EP/N009525/1. The Welsh Government is also acknowledged for the Sêr Cymru II Recapturing Talent Fellowship partly funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). We would like to acknowledge the assistance provided by Swansea University College of Engineering AIM Facility, which was funded in part by the EPSRC (EP/M028267/1), the European Regional Development Fund through the Welsh Government (80708) and the Ser Solar project via the Welsh Government. JAR would like to acknowledge Dr Joel Loveridge for helpful NMR discussions.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2021/9/1
Y1 - 2021/9/1
N2 - The utilization of carbon dioxide is a major incentive for the growing field of carbon capture. Carbon dioxide could be an abundant building block to generate higher-value chemical products. Herein, we fabricated a porous copper electrode capable of catalyzing the reduction of carbon dioxide into higher-value products, such as ethylene, ethanol and propanol. We investigated the formation of the foams under different conditions, not only analyzing their morphological and crystal structure, but also documenting their performance as a catalyst. In particular, we studied the response of the foams to CO2 electrolysis, including the effect of urea as a potential additive to enhance CO2 catalysis. Before electrolysis, the pristine and urea-modified foam copper electrodes consisted of a mixture of cuboctahedra and dendrites. After 35 min of electrolysis, the cuboctahedra and dendrites underwent structural rearrangement affecting catalysis performance. We found that alterations in the morphology, crystallinity and surface composition of the catalyst were conducive to the deactivation of the copper foams.
AB - The utilization of carbon dioxide is a major incentive for the growing field of carbon capture. Carbon dioxide could be an abundant building block to generate higher-value chemical products. Herein, we fabricated a porous copper electrode capable of catalyzing the reduction of carbon dioxide into higher-value products, such as ethylene, ethanol and propanol. We investigated the formation of the foams under different conditions, not only analyzing their morphological and crystal structure, but also documenting their performance as a catalyst. In particular, we studied the response of the foams to CO2 electrolysis, including the effect of urea as a potential additive to enhance CO2 catalysis. Before electrolysis, the pristine and urea-modified foam copper electrodes consisted of a mixture of cuboctahedra and dendrites. After 35 min of electrolysis, the cuboctahedra and dendrites underwent structural rearrangement affecting catalysis performance. We found that alterations in the morphology, crystallinity and surface composition of the catalyst were conducive to the deactivation of the copper foams.
KW - CO2 reduction
KW - copper foam
KW - electrocatalysis
KW - heterogeneous catalyst
KW - modified electrodes
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85130249369&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/chemistry3030048
DO - 10.3390/chemistry3030048
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85130249369
VL - 3
SP - 687
EP - 703
JO - Chemistry (Switzerland)
JF - Chemistry (Switzerland)
SN - 2624-8549
IS - 3
ER -
