Cu-Pd alloy nanoparticles as highly selective catalysts for efficient electrochemical reduction of CO2 to CO

By Yeongdong Mun, Seunghyun Lee, A. Cho, Seongbeen Kim, J. Han, Jinwoo Lee. Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, 2019

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Abstract Although a copper catalyst has very interesting properties in CO2 electroreduction reaction (CO2RR), the high overpotential of this reaction and low selectivity of the catalyst for a single product are major hindrances to catalyst commercialization. In this work, monodisperse Cu-Pd nanoparticles (NPs) with various compositions are synthesized using the colloidal method. These NPs show a totally different catalytic performance than bulk Cu catalysts. Alloying Cu with Pd suppresses hydrocarbon production on the alloy NP catalyst surface. NPs with a 1:1 Cu-Pd ratio show the best catalytic activity for the conversion of CO2 to CO. At -0.9 V (vs. RHE), 87% CO Faradaic efficiency is achieved, as well as a high noble metal mass activity of 47 mA m g P d - 1 , for CO production. Density functional theory calculations suggest that the energy barrier to the CO* protonation step is increased when Pd is alloyed with Cu; this increase suppresses the reduction of CO2 to hydrocarbons. This result is a significant advance toward selective electrochemical reduction of CO2.

Subfields: Catalysis, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d730e3046e19c8d93a039e9fc6438c713c30966a