Graphene Supported Tungsten Carbide as Catalyst for Electrochemical Reduction of CO2

Catalysts

ReesB. Rankin¹  Zachery Smith¹  Sahithi Ananthaneni¹ 

[1] Department of Chemical Engineering, Villanova University, 800 E Lancaster University, Villanova, PA 19085, USA;

关键词: electrochemical reduction;    electrocatalyst;    energy landscape;    CO₂RR;    Tungsten Carbide;    graphene;    DFT;   

DOI  :  10.3390/catal9070604

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Electrochemical reduction of CO₂ to useful chemical and fuels in an energy efficient way is currently an expensive and inefficient process. Recently, low-cost transition metal-carbides (TMCs) have been proven to exhibit similar electronic structure similarities to Platinum-Group-Metal (PGM) catalysts and hence, can be good substitutes for some important reduction reactions. In this work, we test graphene-supported WC (Tungsten Carbide) nanoclusters as an electrocatalyst for the CO₂ reduction reaction. Specifically, we perform density functional theory (DFT) studies to understand various possible reaction mechanisms and determine the lowest thermodynamic energy landscape of CO₂ reduction to various products, such as CO, HCOOH, CH₃OH, and CH₄. This in-depth study of reaction energetics could lead to improvements and development of more efficient electrocatalysts for CO₂ reduction.

【 授权许可】

Unknown