(Invited) Two-Dimensional Materials for Electrochemical Synthesis of Fuels

The sustainable civilization and long-term economic development rely on the security of energy. The conversion of carbon dioxide into fuels or commodity chemicals, incorporated with intermittent renewable energy sources like solar and wind, is an attractive venture that could offer an alternative solution to both the contemporary energy crisis and environmental issues. The recycling of carbon dioxide together with water by utilizing renewable electricity in the low temperature electrolysis process provides a diversity of carbon-neutral fuel products depending on the catalyst system. The development of active and stable catalyst system with affordable cost for the low temperature electrolysis remains a major challenge. We developed carbon-based two dimensional materials as metal-free catalysts for efficient, selective and sustainable electroreduction of carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide.

Hydrogen is not only an ideal energy carrier, but also an important agent for many industrial chemical processes. The economical production of hydrogen from electrochemical water splitting is strongly dependent on the affordable catalysts with promising activity to replace platinum-group metals. Recently, layered molybdenum and tungsten have attracted substantial interest to catalyze hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) with their suitable differential free energies for intermediate adsorbed *H at the edge sites. We aim to develop a novel series of transition-metal dichalcogenides with surface activity for HER with a combination of theoretical prediction and experimental verification.