Researchers make green chemistry advance with new catalyst for reduction
of carbon dioxide

Date:
August 13, 2020
Source:
Oregon State University
Summary:
Researchers have made a key advance in the green chemistry pursuit
of converting the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into reusable
forms of carbon via electrochemical reduction.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Researchers at Oregon State University have made a key advance in the
green chemistry pursuit of converting the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide
into reusable forms of carbon via electrochemical reduction.


========================================================================== Published in Nature Energy, the study led by Zhenxing Feng of the OSU
College of Engineering and colleagues at Southern University of Science
and Technology in China and Stanford University describes a new type
of electrocatalyst.

The catalyst can selectively promote a CO2 reduction reaction resulting in
a desired product -- carbon monoxide was the choice in this research. A catalyst is anything that speeds the rate of a chemical reaction without
being consumed by the reaction.

"The reduction of carbon dioxide is beneficial for a clean environment
and sustainable development," said Feng, assistant professor of
chemical engineering. "In contrast to traditional CO2 reduction that
uses chemical methods at high temperatures with a high demand of extra
energy, electrochemical CO2 reduction reactions can be performed at
room temperature using liquid solution. And the electricity required
for electrochemical CO2 reduction can be obtained from renewable energy
sources such as solar power, thus enabling completely green processes."
A reduction reaction means one of the atoms involved gains one or more electrons. In the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide, metal nanocatalysts have shown the potential to selectively reduce CO2 to a particular carbon product. Controlling the nanostructure is critical for understanding the reaction mechanism and for optimizing the performance
of the nanocatalyst in the pursuit of specific products, such as carbon monoxide, formic acid or methane, that are important for other chemical processes and products.

"However, due to many possible reaction pathways for different products,
carbon dioxide reduction reactions have historically had low selectivity
and efficiency," Feng said. "The electrocatalysts need to promote the
reaction with high selectivity to get one certain product, carbon monoxide
in our case.

Despite many efforts in this field, there had been little progress."
Feng and his research co-leaders tried a new strategy. They made nickel phthalocyanine as a molecularly engineered electrocatalyst and found
it showed superior efficiency at high current densities for converting
CO2 to carbon monoxide in a gas-diffusion electrode device, with stable operation for 40 hours.

"To understand the reaction mechanism of our catalyst, my group at OSU
used X- ray absorption spectroscopy to monitor the catalyst's change
during the reaction processes, confirming the role of the catalyst
in the reaction," Feng said. "This collaborative work demonstrates a high-performance catalyst for green processes of electrochemical CO2
reduction reactions. It also sheds light on the reaction mechanism of
our catalyst, which can guide the future development of energy conversion devices as we work toward a negative-carbon economy."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Oregon_State_University. Original
written by Steve Lundeberg. Note: Content may be edited for style
and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Xiao Zhang, Yang Wang, Meng Gu, Maoyu Wang, Zisheng Zhang,
Weiying Pan,
Zhan Jiang, Hongzhi Zheng, Marcos Lucero, Hailiang Wang, George E.

Sterbinsky, Qing Ma, Yang-Gang Wang, Zhenxing Feng, Jun Li,
Hongjie Dai, Yongye Liang. Molecular engineering of dispersed
nickel phthalocyanines on carbon nanotubes for selective CO2
reduction. Nature Energy, 2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41560-020-0667-9 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200813100648.htm

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