Nanostructured transition metal dichalcogenide electrocatalysts for CO2 reduction in ionic liquid

Mohammad Asadi; Kibum Kim; Cong Liu; Aditya Venkata Addepalli; Pedram Abbasi; Poya Yasaei; Patrick Phillips; Amirhossein Behranginia; José M Cerrato; Richard Haasch; Peter Zapol; Bijandra Kumar; Robert F Klie; Jeremiah Abiade; Larry A Curtiss; Amin Salehi-Khojin

doi:10.1126/science.aaf4767

Nanostructured transition metal dichalcogenide electrocatalysts for CO2 reduction in ionic liquid

Science. 2016 Jul 29;353(6298):467-70. doi: 10.1126/science.aaf4767.

Authors

Mohammad Asadi¹, Kibum Kim², Cong Liu³, Aditya Venkata Addepalli¹, Pedram Abbasi¹, Poya Yasaei¹, Patrick Phillips⁴, Amirhossein Behranginia¹, José M Cerrato⁵, Richard Haasch⁶, Peter Zapol³, Bijandra Kumar⁷, Robert F Klie⁴, Jeremiah Abiade¹, Larry A Curtiss⁸, Amin Salehi-Khojin⁹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL 60607, USA.
² Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL 60607, USA. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju 361-763, South Korea.
³ Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439, USA.
⁴ Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607, USA.
⁵ Department of Civil Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA.
⁶ Materials Research Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
⁷ Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL 60607, USA. Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, USA.
⁸ Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439, USA. salehikh@uic.edu curtiss@anl.gov.
⁹ Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL 60607, USA. salehikh@uic.edu curtiss@anl.gov.

PMID: 27471300
DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf4767

Abstract

Conversion of carbon dioxide (CO2) into fuels is an attractive solution to many energy and environmental challenges. However, the chemical inertness of CO2 renders many electrochemical and photochemical conversion processes inefficient. We report a transition metal dichalcogenide nanoarchitecture for catalytic electrochemical CO2 conversion to carbon monoxide (CO) in an ionic liquid. We found that tungsten diselenide nanoflakes show a current density of 18.95 milliamperes per square centimeter, CO faradaic efficiency of 24%, and CO formation turnover frequency of 0.28 per second at a low overpotential of 54 millivolts. We also applied this catalyst in a light-harvesting artificial leaf platform that concurrently oxidized water in the absence of any external potential.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.