Journal
ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE-INTERNATIONAL EDITION
Volume 56, Issue 13, Pages 3645-3649Publisher
WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201612194
Keywords
CO2 reduction; grain boundaries; heterogeneous catalysts; porous nanowires; tin oxide
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Funding
- Kentucky Department for Energy Development and Independence grant [PON2 127 1500002410]
- Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research at the University of Louisville
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Electrochemical conversion of CO2 into energydense liquids, such as formic acid, is desirable as a hydrogen carrier and a chemical feedstock. SnOx is one of the few catalysts that reduce CO2 into formic acid with high selectivity but at high overpotential and low current density. We show that an electrochemically reduced SnO2 porous nanowire catalyst (Sn-pNWs) with a high density of grain boundaries (GBs) exhibits an energy conversion efficiency of CO2-into-HCOOH higher than analogous catalysts. HCOOH formation begins at lower overpotential (350 mV) and reaches a steady Faradaic efficiency of ca. 80% at only -0.8 V vs. RHE. A comparison with commercial SnO2 nanoparticles confirms that the improved CO2 reduction performance of Sn-pNWs is due to the density of GBs within the porous structure, which introduce new catalytically active sites. Produced with a scalable plasma synthesis technology, the catalysts have potential for application in the CO2 conversion industry.
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