Steering hydrogen evolution in CO2 electroreduction through tailoring various co-catalysts

Content Provider	Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
Author	Xian-Zong Wang Subiao Liu Qingxia Liu Jing-Li Luo
Abstract	Electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) is a sustainable approach to producing carbon-neutral fuels when combined with renewable energies. Besides the emphatic consideration of developing efficient catalysts, a suitable conductive carbon agent served as co-catalyst with a low activity toward the competitive hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), is also highly needed. However, there have been limited studies focused on the investigation of co-catalyst during CO2RR, especially on their HER behavior. We herein explored the HER of various co-catalyst, i.e., acetylene black (AB), carbon black (CB) and graphite flake (GF) as well as carbon nanotube (CNT), and their composites with sub-25 nm Ag nanowires (NWs) as catalysts. GF and CB exhibit a higher activity toward CO2RR and HER, respectively. In contrast, CB/Ag NWs achieve the highest Faraday efficiency and partial current density for CO2RR, whereas CNT/Ag NWs prefer HER. The differences in HER suggest a critical influence of co-catalyst and this study points to a better guidance on the selection of co-catalyst for CO2RR. Keywords: Carbon dioxide reduction reaction, Hydrogen evolution reaction, Carbon support material, Ag nanowires
Related Links	http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1388248119301948
ISSN	13882481
DOI	10.1016/j.elecom.2019.106531
Journal	Electrochemistry Communications
Volume Number	107
Language	English
Publisher	Elsevier
Publisher Date	2019-01-01
Publisher Place	United States
Access Restriction	Open
Subject Keyword	Industrial electrochemistry Chemistry
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Electrochemistry