Investigation of Electrochemical CO₂ Reduction on Cost Effective Copper Zinc Oxide Electrocatalyst

Abstract

The electrochemical conversion of CO2 to value-added products is a potential way to mitigate climate change and carbon neutrality. The catalyst design plays a significant role in achieving CO2 product selectivity and efficiency. This report presents a straightforward electrochemical modification of bimetallic CuZn catalyst for efficient reduction of CO2 to formate. The surface treatment of CuZn catalyst at different anodized times in an aqueous medium has been widely investigated. Among them, the modified electrocatalyst CuZnO-45 has a minimum onset potential of -0.274 V vs. RHE for electrochemical reduction of CO2. Further, scanning electrochemical microscope results reveal the electrocatalytic CO2 reduction to formate. This study has been extended for the continuous electrolysis process to quantify the product formation. The bimetallic CuZnO-45 nanostructure catalyst has the ability to produce a maximum faradaic efficiency of 88.3%, and 35.3 mA/cm2 partial current density was accomplished at the potential of -0.86 V vs. RHE. This work covers the design of a highly electroactive and stable bimetallic catalyst for electrochemical CO2 reduction

Promoting water dissociation for efficient solar driven CO2 electroreduction via improving hydroxyl adsorption

“…As can be seen from Fig. 3a , BOC-2 shows smaller Tafel slope among all catalysts, indicating that the introduction of V O favors the kinetics of CO 2 RR 50 . It’s noteworthy that the value of Tafel slope is much larger than the reported typical value, which indicates that the chemical step precedes the electron transfer or the chemical step is rate-limiting.…”

Recent insights on the use of modified Zn-based catalysts in eCO2RR

“…The C 1 products on CuZnO catalysts not just are CO and CH 4 , but HCOOH. By adjusting the anodization time, Pandiarajan et al 145 obtained the functional electrocatalyst CuZnO-45, which exhibited a maximum FE HCOOH of 88.3%, and a 35.3 mA cm −2 partial current density at −0.86 V vs. RHE (Fig. 11i).…”

“…(i) FE of the partial current density of formate for CuZnO-45 at different potentials. 145 Copyright 2022. The Electrochemical Society ("ECS").…”