KSEF RDE: Nitrogen-Doped Hybrid Carbon Electrode for Efficient and Robust Electrochemical Reduction of CO2

The electrochemical reduction of CO2 pollutants forced by renewable energy is a desirable solution for energy and environmental crises. Despite of its importance, scientific and technological advances in electrochemical reduction of CO2 have been very limited due to its kinetic and thermodynamic challenges. Most of previous and current catalysts employ metallic materials, which revealed serious problems such as a poor faradaic efficiency, corrosion, and surface deactivation. Drastically different approach is necessary to overcome aforementioned problems. This proposal will delineate a novel approach with unexplored, carbon-based catalyst materials. This non-metallic catalyst is hypothesized to provide an efficient, robust, and durable catalytic route for CO2 reduction. If successful, knowledges gained from this study will lead to the design of metal-free catalysts with high selectivity, high energy efficiency, and superior durability. Heteroatom-doped, sp2- and sp3-bonded hybrid carbon catalysts will be synthesized by microwave-assisted, chemical vapor deposition technique. Adsorption/desorption of reactant/intermediates at catalytic surface, a barrier for electron transfer, and electrode surface deactivation will be investigated as a function of dopant chemical states and a host microstructure. The effect of sp2-carbon phase and sp3-carbon phase on catalytic sites, electron transfer, conductivity, long-term durability of catalysts will be examined. An in-situ FT-IR spectroelectrochemical technique will be developed to probe the adsorption of reaction intermediate species at various active sites, which would help to unveil complex reaction pathways.