Carbon Dioxide to Reduce Pollution Possible? Here’s What Scientists Say

Carbon dioxide (CO2) can be electrochemically reduced to carbon monoxide (CO) to remove CO2 from the environment, reduce pollution, and generate carbon monoxide-based alternative energy.

However, the current electrochemical catalysts for the carbon dioxide reduction process (CO2RR) need to be more effective and selective to make CO2RR a competitive alternative.

By modifying gold nanoparticles with the macrocyclic substance cucurbit[6]uril, a team of researchers from the Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed a gold-based hybrid material that enables more effective CO2RR than was previously possible.

On December 5th, 2022, the work was published in the journal Nano Research.

Carbon Dioxide to Solve Pollution?

In comparison to other catalysts, gold is known to be very active in converting CO2 to CO, claim the researchers. Azo Materials said the necessity in CO2RR for CO2 adsorption and CO desorption, as the CO desorption does not occur due to the positive correlation of its binding energy to the catalyst, clashes with the binding energies of both CO2 and CO to the gold catalyst surface.

By altering CB[6], the researchers produced nanoparticles under control. Due to CB[6negatively ]'s charged portals and positively charged surface, the electrical interaction between CB[6] and metal controls the catalytic performance.

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Electrocatalytic Reaction

The researchers used transmission electron microscopy to confirm the nanoparticles' shape and surface structure. The gold-based hybrid material (Au@CB[6]) has demonstrated that it improves CO2RR catalytic activity.

The researchers claim that several factors have increased catalytic performance. First, the Au@CB[6] possesses tunable, or adjustable, CO2 enrichment because the CB[6] may enhance the local CO2 concentration close to the metal surface by capturing CO2. Additionally, by severing the scaling mentioned above relations of the binding affinity between the catalyst surface and CO2/CO, the alteration of CB[6] allows for better CO2RR.

Additionally, because CO2 has low solubility in aqueous electrolytes, Phys.org said the efficiency of CO2RR with gold surface catalysts has previously been constrained. The researchers overcame this problem by using the highly specific binding force of macrocycle to adsorb certain species to selectively regular electrocatalytic reactions.

The findings demonstrated that CB[6] might collect CO2, drive a rise in local CO2 concentration close to the metal contact, and support CO desorption, which are the primary drivers of improved CO2RR performance. A possible method to enhance the electrocatalytic performance is to alter the surface of the catalysts using the rigid macrocycle cucurbit[n]uril.

The catalyst will continue to be changed by the researchers to raise the CO2RR's effectiveness even further.