As the fight against climate change and the transition to sustainability takes great strides, a team of researchers has introduced a new research framework that makes it easier to understand how a catalyst’s structure affects reactions.
Details of the researcher’s breakthrough were published in a magazine. Angewante Chemie.
Understanding how a catalyst’s surface affects its activity can help design efficient catalyst structures for specific reactivity requirements. However, considering the complex interfacial microenvironment of electrocatalysts, understanding the mechanism behind this relationship is not an easy task.
“To decipher this, we focused on electrochemical CO2 reduction reactions (CO2RR) on tin oxide-based (Sn-O) catalysts,” said Tohoku University Institute for Advanced Research on Materials Science (WPI-AIMR) Associate Professor Hao Li points out. ) and corresponding author of the paper. “In doing so, we not only revealed the active surface; seed Although the influence of SnO2-based catalysts in CO2RR was obvious, a clear correlation between surface speciation and CO2RR performance was also established. ”
Promising CO2 reduction methods
CO2RR is recognized as a promising method to reduce CO2 emissions and produce high-value fuels using formic acid. acid (HCOOH) is a noteworthy product because it is used for a variety of applications in industries such as pharmaceuticals, metallurgy, and environmental remediation.
The proposed method helped to identify the true surface states of SnO2 that are responsible for the performance of CO2 reduction reaction under specific electrocatalytic conditions. Furthermore, the team corroborated their findings through experiments using a variety of his SnO2 shapes and advanced characterization techniques.
Li and his colleagues developed the methodology by combining theoretical studies and experimental electrochemical techniques.
“We have bridged the gap between theory and experiment, providing a comprehensive understanding of catalyst behavior under real process conditions,” adds Lee.
The research team is currently focused on applying this methodology to a variety of electrochemical reactions. By doing this, they hope to uncover more about unique structure-activity relationships and accelerate the design of high-performance, scalable electrocatalysts.
Reference: “Deciphering the structure-activity relationship for CO2 electroreduction on SnO2 using standard research paradigms” Zhongyuan Guo, Yihong Yu, Congcong Li, Egon Campos dos Santos, Tianyi Wang, Huihui Li, Jiang Xu, Chuangwei Liu, Hao Written by Li, 29 January 2024 Angewante Chemie International Edition.
DOI: 10.1002/anie.202319913