Electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction exhibits promise as way to combat anthropogenic climate change and convert CO₂ into fuels and chemical feedstocks. The efficient reduction of CO₂ requires a catalyst that operates at low overpotential, high turnover frequency and high selectivity. Recent trends in state-of-the-art CO₂ reduction catalysis involve the utilization of high surface area porous and/or oxide derived catalysts to promote the reduction of CO₂ to multi-carbon products. The activity and selectivity of these catalysts has been attributed to a variety of different structural, electronic and geometric aspects ranging from the presence of high energy grain boundaries following oxide reduction¹, and residual subsurface oxygen^2,3, to cascading reactions coupled with mass transport through the porous catalyst networks^4,5,6. This work is focused on examining the effect of high surface area porous catalysts on CO₂ reduction. The electrodeposition of high surface area catalysts with well-defined interconnected porosity will be demonstrated and CO₂ reduction activity and selectivity will be tested with respect to the catalysts composition, thickness, and pore and ligament size.

References:

1.) Kanan, M. W., Nature 508, 504-507 (2014)

2.) Cuenya, B. R. al, Nature Comm. 7, 1-8 (2016)

3.) Nilsson, A. al, J. Phys Chem. Lett., 8, 285-290 (2017)

4.) Surendranath, Y. al, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 137, 14834-14837 (2015)

5.) Broekmann, P. al, ACS Catal., 7, 5431-5437 (2017)

6.)Wang, C. al, Catal. Sci. Technol., 8, 2364-2369 (2018)