Studies on Degradation of Nano Copper Catalyst in Cathode for

CO₂ Electrolysis to Organic Compounds

Garima Garg, Suddhasatwa Basu*

Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi 110016, India

ABSTRACT

In the present work, copper nanoparticles are used in cathode electrode and Pt/C in anode electrode of an electrolysis cell for liquid phase [1] and gas phase electroreduction of CO₂ using KHCO₃ solution and Nafion 117 as electrolyte respectively. The product analysis of electro-reduction process carried out in HPLC and mass spectroscope reveals formation of carbon monoxide, methane, methanol and ethane along with hydrogen as the major product and traces of C₂, C₃ alcohols and ketones. Overall faradaic efficiency corresponding to CO₂ reduction product is 39.6 %, whereas hydrogen production is suppressed to 4.5 % till the ERC operation of 50 minutes [2, 3]. Thereafter efficiency of ERC decreases and hydrogen evolution increases. SEM, EDS and XRD studies of cathode electrodes points out that depletion of CO₂ reduction to CO and CH₄ products with time may be due to dissolution of Cu nano particles from the cathode electrode.

References

1. S. Komastu, M. Tanaka, A. Okumura, A. Kungi, Electrochim. Acta 40 (1995) 745-753.
2. M. Le, M. Ren, Z. Zhang, P.T. Sprunger, R.L. Kurtz, J.C. Flake, J. Electrochem. Soc. 158 (2011) E45-E49.
3. K.P. Kuhl, E.R. Cave, D.N. Abram, T.F. Jaramillo, Energy Environ. Sci. 5 (2012) 7050-7059

Keywords:  Electroreduction of carbon dioxide, Copper nanoparticles, Electrode degradation

*Corresponding author: e-mail sbasu@iitd.ac.in; Tel: 91 11 26591035; Fax 91 11 26581120

Presented by corresponding author