The impact of nitrogen oxides on electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 11; no. 1; pp. 5856 - 9
• Main Authors: Ko, Byung Hee, Hasa, Bjorn, Shin, Haeun, Jeng, Emily, Overa, Sean, Chen, Wilson, Jiao, Feng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 17.11.2020; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 140/131; 140/146; 140/58; 639/166/898; 639/638/161/886; Ammonia; Carbon dioxide; Carbon dioxide emissions; Carbon sources; Catalysts; chemical engineering; Contaminants; Copper; Electrocatalysts; electrochemical reduction; Electrochemistry; Electrolysis; Electrowinning; Greenhouse effect; Greenhouse gases; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hydroxylamine; INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY; multidisciplinary; Nitric oxide; Nitrogen dioxide; Nitrogen oxides; Nitrous oxide; Photochemicals; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Silver; Tin
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19731-8

The electroreduction of carbon dioxide offers a promising avenue to produce valuable fuels and chemicals using greenhouse gas carbon dioxide as the carbon feedstock. Because industrial carbon dioxide point sources often contain numerous contaminants, such as nitrogen oxides, understanding the potential impact of contaminants on carbon dioxide electrolysis is crucial for practical applications. Herein, we investigate the impact of various nitrogen oxides, including nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, and nitrous oxide, on carbon dioxide electroreduction on three model electrocatalysts (i.e., copper, silver, and tin). We demonstrate that the presence of nitrogen oxides (up to 0.83%) in the carbon dioxide feed leads to a considerable Faradaic efficiency loss in carbon dioxide electroreduction, which is caused by the preferential electroreduction of nitrogen oxides over carbon dioxide. The primary products of nitrogen oxides electroreduction include nitrous oxide, nitrogen, hydroxylamine, and ammonia. Despite the loss in Faradaic efficiency, the electrocatalysts exhibit similar carbon dioxide reduction performances once a pure carbon dioxide feed is restored, indicating a negligible long-term impact of nitrogen oxides on the catalytic properties of the model catalysts. Understanding the impact of nitrogen oxides, common contaminants in CO 2 emission from industries is a key to commercializing CO 2 electrolysis technologies. Here, the authors conduct an investigation of CO 2 electroreduction on copper, silver, and tin catalysts in the presence of nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, or nitrous oxide.