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Research Progress

Scientist Reveal New Strategy for Carbon Dioxide Electrochemical Reduction

Aug 21, 2018

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emission has become a global problem that leads to climate change and greenhouse effect to the earth. Hence, efficient conversion of greenhouse gas CO2 into value-added liquid fuels is way to fix CO2, and it can alleviate the growing shortage of non-renewable fossil fuels at the same time.  

The electrochemical reduction of CO2 to value-added products obtains great attention and investigation worldwide in recent years owing to its mild reaction conditions and high energy efficiency. However, it remains a challenge to maintain a high current efficiency in a wide negative potential range for achieving a high production rate of the target products. 

Recently, a research team led by Prof. LIU Licheng from the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences achieved efficient electrocatalytic conversion of CO2 to formate over a wide negative potential range. 

The researchers developed a new composite catalyst composed of bismuth oxide nanosheets and nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots (Bi2O3-NGQDs), demonstrating an average current efficiency of 95.6% over a wide negative potential range from -0.9 V to -1.2 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode.

They found that the origin of high activity was the significant synergistic effect among Bi2O3 and NGQDs in increasing adsorption energy of adsorbed CO2 and OCHO* intermediate. 

Furthermore, this study reveals that NGQDs can not only enhance the activity of Bi2O3, but also enhance the activity of other metal oxides such as SnO2. This work opens up a facile avenue for enhancing activity of some metal oxides in a wide negative potential range. 

The study was published in Angewandte Chemie, and it was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. 

 

Schematic illustration of the fabrication process for Bi2O3-NGQDs and the CO2 electrocatalytic reduction process. (Image by CHEN Zhipeng)  

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