Issue 7, 2019

Patterning Cu nanostructures tailored for CO2 reduction to electrooxidizable fuels and oxygen reduction in alkaline media

Abstract

Due to the limited availability of noble metal catalysts, such as platinum, palladium, or gold, their substitution by more abundant elements is highly advisable. Considerably challenging is the controlled and reproducible synthesis of stable non-noble metallic nanostructures with accessible active sites. Here, we report a method of preparation of bare (ligand-free) Cu nanostructures from polycrystalline metal in a controlled manner. This procedure relies on heterogeneous localized electrorefining of polycrystalline Cu on indium tin oxide (ITO) and glassy carbon as model supports using scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM). The morphology of nanostructures and thus their catalytic properties are tunable by adjusting the electrorefining parameters, i.e., the electrodeposition voltage, the translation rate of the metal source and the composition of the supporting electrolyte. The activity of the obtained materials towards the carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO2RR), oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in alkaline media and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), is studied by feedback mode SECM. Spiky Cu nanostructures obtained at a high concentration of chloride ions exhibit enhanced electrocatalytic activity. Nanostructures deposited under high cathodic overpotentials possess a high surface-to-volume ratio with a large number of catalytic sites active towards the reversible CO2RR and ORR. The CO2RR yields easily electrooxidizable compounds – formic acid and carbon monoxide. The HER seems to occur efficiently at the crystallographic facets of Cu nanostructures electrodeposited under mild polarization.

Graphical abstract: Patterning Cu nanostructures tailored for CO2 reduction to electrooxidizable fuels and oxygen reduction in alkaline media

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
18 Mar 2019
Accepted
16 May 2019
First published
20 May 2019
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Nanoscale Adv., 2019,1, 2645-2653

Patterning Cu nanostructures tailored for CO2 reduction to electrooxidizable fuels and oxygen reduction in alkaline media

M. Michalak, A. Roguska, W. Nogala and M. Opallo, Nanoscale Adv., 2019, 1, 2645 DOI: 10.1039/C9NA00166B

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