Understanding the Role of Functional Groups in Polymeric Binder for Electrochemical Carbon Dioxide Reduction on Gold Nanoparticles

Ji Hoon Lee, Shyam Kattel, Zhenhua Xie, Brian M. Tackett, Jiajun Wang, Chang Jun Liu, Jingguang G. Chen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

92 Scopus citations

Abstract

Electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) is one of the promising strategies for converting CO2 to value-added chemicals. Gold (Au) catalysts are considered to be the best benchmarking materials for CO2RR to produce CO. In this work, the role of different functional groups of polymeric binders on CO2RR over Au catalysts is systematically investigated by combined experimental measurements and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Especially, it is revealed that the functional groups can play a role in suppressing the undesired hydrogen evolution reaction, the main competing reaction against CO2RR, thus enabling more catalytic active sites to be available for CO2RR and enhancing the CO2RR activity. Consistent with the DFT prediction, fluorine (F)-containing functional groups in the F-rich polytetrafluoroethylene binder lead to a high Faradaic efficiency (≈94.7%) of CO production. This study suggests a new strategy by optimizing polymeric binders for the selective CO2RR.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1804762
JournalAdvanced Functional Materials
Volume28
Issue number45
DOIs
StatePublished - 7 Nov 2018

Keywords

  • binders
  • density functional theories
  • electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction
  • functional groups
  • gold

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