Scalable fabrication of high activity nanoporous copper powders for electrochemical CO2 reduction via ball milling and dealloying

• Published in: Journal of CO2 utilization Vol. 45; p. 101454
• Main Authors: Qi, Zhen, Biener, Monika M., Kashi, Ajay R., Hunegnaw, Sara, Leung, Alvin, Ma, Sichao, Huo, Ziyang, Kuhl, Kendra P., Biener, Juergen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Ltd 01.03.2021; Elsevier
• Subjects: 30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION; Copper; Dealloying; Electrochemical CO2 reduction; Electrochemical CO2reduction; Ethylene production; MATERIALS SCIENCE; Scale-Up; Ethylene production; Electrochemical CO2reduction; Copper; Dealloying; Scale-Up
• ISSN: 2212-9820; 2212-9839
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jcou.2021.101454

•Scalable fabrication of nanoporous copper powders through ball milling and dealloying.•Nanoporous copper powder catalysts for electrochemical CO2 reduction in a commercially relevant MEA electrolyzer.•Peak ethylene Faradaic efficiency of 34% at 75-100 mA/cm2 with a hydrogen Faradaic efficiency below 30%.•Bridges the gap between lab-scale ECR catalyst development and the need of an emerging ECR industry. Electrochemical CO2 reduction (ECR) is a promising technology to close the anthropic CO2 circle using renewable energy to achieve carbon neutrality. Future commercialization of ECR will require the development of new catalyst synthesis routes that will allow significant upscaling of catalyst production from current research-level milligram quantities to the kilogram scale and beyond while maintaining the activity and selectivity demonstrated at the research level. In this work, we report on generating and testing submicron-sized nanoporous copper (npCu) particles by using a scalable approach consisting of ball milling brittle Cu-based intermetallics followed by dealloying to add nanoporosity for high surface area. The resulting npCu particles have been tested in an industry-relevant large area (25 cm2) electrolyzer platform and showed Faraday efficiencies (FE) for ethylene up to 34 % at current densities of 75−100 mA/cm2 while keeping FE for hydrogen less than 30 %. Our results demonstrate that a combination of ball milling and dealloying is a promising approach to generate large quantities of high activity and high surface area npCu particles for ECR at an industry-relevant scale.