(Keynote) Design and Electrochemical Study of Bimetallic Nanostructured Catalysts for the Reduction of Carbon Dioxide

There is a growing interest in developing high-performance catalysts for the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) to address the increasingly serious impacts of global climate change. In this talk, we report on the design of Cu-based and Co-based bimetallic nanomaterials for the electrochemical reduction of CO2. The morphology, composition and structure of the synthesized nanomaterials were characterized with various imaging and spectroscopic techniques, including FE-SEM, TEM, XRD, EDX and XPS. The effects of an applied potential on the electrochemical reduction of CO2 were investigated using various electrochemical methods. The products generated from the CO2 electrochemical reduction were identified by gas chromatography and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) was also employed to monitor the activity of the catalysts and the CO2 reduction products. The kinetics of the CO2 reduction reaction at the nanomaterials was further studied using in situ electrochemical Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The critical roles of nanostructured surfaces in the electrochemical reduction of CO2 are discussed.