de Lucas-Consuegra, A.; Serrano-Ruiz, J.C.; Gutiérrez-Guerra, N.; Valverde, J.L. Low-Temperature Electrocatalytic Conversion of CO2 to Liquid Fuels: Effect of the Cu Particle Size. Catalysts2018, 8, 340.
de Lucas-Consuegra, A.; Serrano-Ruiz, J.C.; Gutiérrez-Guerra, N.; Valverde, J.L. Low-Temperature Electrocatalytic Conversion of CO2 to Liquid Fuels: Effect of the Cu Particle Size. Catalysts 2018, 8, 340.
de Lucas-Consuegra, A.; Serrano-Ruiz, J.C.; Gutiérrez-Guerra, N.; Valverde, J.L. Low-Temperature Electrocatalytic Conversion of CO2 to Liquid Fuels: Effect of the Cu Particle Size. Catalysts2018, 8, 340.
de Lucas-Consuegra, A.; Serrano-Ruiz, J.C.; Gutiérrez-Guerra, N.; Valverde, J.L. Low-Temperature Electrocatalytic Conversion of CO2 to Liquid Fuels: Effect of the Cu Particle Size. Catalysts 2018, 8, 340.
Abstract
A novel gas-phase electrocatalytic system based on a low-temperature proton exchange membrane (Sterion) was developed for the gas phase electrocatalytic conversion of CO2 to liquid fuels. This system achieved gas-phase electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 at low temperatures (below 90 ºC) over a Cu cathode by using water electrolysis-derived protons generated in-situ on an IrO2 anode. Three Cu-based cathodes with varying metal particle sizes were prepared by supporting this metal on an activated carbon at three loadings (50, 20, and 10 wt%; 50%Cu-AC, 20%Cu-AC, and 10%Cu-AC, respectively). The cathodes were characterized by N2 adsorption–desorption, temperature-programmed reduction (TPR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) whereas their performance towards the electrocatalytic conversion of CO2 was subsequently studied. The membrane electrode assembly (MEA) containing the cathode with the largest Cu particle size (50%Cu-AC, 40 nm) showed the highest CO2 electrocatalytic activity per mole of Cu, with methyl formate being the main product. This higher electrocatalytic activity was attributed to the lower Cu–CO bonding strength over large Cu particles. Different product distributions were obtained over 20%Cu-AC and 10%Cu-AC, with acetaldehyde and methanol being the main reaction products, respectively. The CO2 consumption rate increased with the applied current and the reaction temperature.
Keywords
CO2 electroreduction; CO2 valorization; Cu catalyst; Particle size; PEM; Acetaldehyde production; Methanol production
Subject
CHEMISTRY, Chemical Engineering
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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