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Author
Nadal Bigorra, Arnau
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Abstract
To reduce our dependence on fossil fuels is critical to mitigate the climate change. In this regard, the electrolytic reduction of CO2 is an appealing method for the synthesis of fuels employing renewable energy. It is a reaction that uses CO2 as a reagent and electricity to synthesize fuels, this means that on the one hand a renewable energy source is used as a source of electricity and on the other hand the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is reduced and reused as fuel.
Catalysts employed in electrolysers for CO2 electroreduction (CO2RR) typically rely on heterogeneous catalysts, such as gold, silver, or copper. However, they suffer from some limitations like high cost or low level of selectivity of produced products. In this context, we considered a new family of heterogeneous catalysts, Covalent Organic Framework (COF), materials that by the tuning of the chemical and electronic environments can selectively convert CO2 in carbon-based products. Our results indicate that the developed COF catalysts are very active for producing CO and H2 (syngas) under typical H-cell setup.
Now, our objective is to explore the activity of this new catalysts in a flow cell electrolyser capable of operating at conditions more relevant to industry.
In the project we will evaluate a flow cell reactor design three compartment cells to improve the current densities and overall CO2 reduction of the system by overcoming the mass-transport issues inherent to batch-type electrolysis.
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