Carbon Support Nanostructuration for CO2 Electroreduction to Formic Acid on Copper Based Catalysts

• Published in: ECS transactions Vol. 77; no. 11; pp. 1291 - 1302
• Main Authors: Comminges, Clément, Sahin, Nihat Ege, Le Valant, Anthony, Napporn, Teko W., Parmentier, Julien, Kiener, Julien, Ersen, Ovidiu, Melinte, Gregorian, Kokoh, Kouakou Boniface
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: The Electrochemical Society, Inc 01.01.2017
• ISSN: 1938-5862; 1938-6737
• DOI: 10.1149/07711.1291ecst

Mesoporous carbon structures containing copper particles were synthesized according to different synthesis methods in order to tune the morphostructural properties of these electrocatalysts for the CO2 reduction reaction. Microwave polyol synthesis, hard templating, one pot soft templating and evaporation induced self assembly gave access to different mesoporous structures. Copper particles were identified inside the mesoporous structures, while the porous channels remained unaffected leading to confined nano reactors. Bulk electrolyses showed that only two CO2 reduction products are obtained: HCOOH as the main product with a low amount of CO, H2 completing the faradaic balance. Differences in steady state current densities during electrolyses were correlated to the Cu metallic specific surface area. The latter was determined according to a geometrical model based on truncated octahedron clusters developed for copper clusters. This correlation evidences that confined Cu particles remains still electroactive and paves a way for the efficient development of 3D electrodes.