Published October 20, 2022 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Sprayed Ag oxygen reduction reaction gas-diffusion electrodes for the electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 to CO

  • 1. Analytical Chemistry—Center for Electrochemical Sciences (CES), Faculty of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Ruhr University Bochum, Universitätsstr. 150, D-44780 Bochum, Germany.
  • 2. Performance Colors & Glass, Performance Coatings, Ferro GmbH, Frankfurt/Main, Germany
  • 3. Institute of Chemical and Electrochemical Process Engineering, Clausthal University of Technology, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany

Description

Gas-diffusion electrodes have been successfully employed in electrochemical chlorine production, and they also hold great potential in the field of electrochemical CO2 reduction. Herein, we demonstrate how sprayed Ag-based gas-diffusion electrodes, which show outstanding performance for the reduction of oxygen, need to be modified to produce CO from CO2. A computer-controlled automated airbrush-type spraying setup is used to systematically vary the core fabrication parameters of the process and investigate their effect on the electrochemical performance. Focused ion-beam milling combined with scanning electron microscopy provides deeper insight into the structure of the electrodes and serves in combination with electrochemical data as the measure for the optimisation. Eventually, electrodes can be produced that suppress the evolution of H2 to the extent that an average Faradaic efficiency of 79% for CO can be maintained for at least 10 h at a current density of −100 mA∙cm−2.

Notes

Financial support by European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (CasCat [833408]), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) in the framework of the research unit FOR 2397 (276655237), and the BMBF in the framework of the project CO2-WIN: ProMet (033RC017E).

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DOI10.1002appl.202200081.pdf

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Additional details

Funding

CASCAT – Catalytic cascade reactions. From fundamentals of nanozymes to applications based on gas-diffusion electrodes 833408
European Commission