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  4. Synthesis of Cu/CeO2-x Nanocrystalline Heterodimers with Interfacial Active Sites To Promote CO2 Electroreduction
 
research article

Synthesis of Cu/CeO2-x Nanocrystalline Heterodimers with Interfacial Active Sites To Promote CO2 Electroreduction

Varandili, Seyedeh Behnaz
•
Huang, Jianfeng  
•
Oveisi, Emad  
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June 1, 2019
Acs Catalysis

Synergistic effects at metal/metal oxide interfaces often give rise to highly active and selective catalytic motifs. So far, such interactions have been rarely explored to enhance the selectivity in the electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR). Herein, Cu/CeO2-x, heterodimers (HDs) are synthesized and presented as one of the prime examples where such effects promote CO2RR, A colloidal seeded-growth synthesis is developed to connect the two highly mismatched domains (Cu and CeO2-x) through an interface. The Cu/CeO2-x HDs exhibit state-of-the-art selectivity toward CO2RR (up to similar to 80%) against the competitive hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and high faradaic efficiency for methane (up to similar to 54%) at -1.2 V-RHE, which is similar to 5 times higher than that obtained when the Cu and CeO2-x nanocrystals are physically mixed. Operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy along with other ex-situ spectroscopies evidences the partial reduction of Ce4+ to Ce3+ in the HDs during CO2RR A Density Functional Theory (DFT) study of the active site motif in reducing condition reveals synergistic effects in the electronic structure at the interface. The proposed lowest free energy pathway utilizes an O-vacancy site with intermediates binding to both Cu and Ce atoms, a configuration which allows one to break the CHO*/CO* scaling relation. The suppression of HER is attributed to the spontaneous formation of CO* at this interfacial motif and subsequent blockage of the Cu-sites.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1021/acscatal.9b00010
Web of Science ID

WOS:000471212600031

Author(s)
Varandili, Seyedeh Behnaz
Huang, Jianfeng  
Oveisi, Emad  
De Gregorio, Gian Luca  
Mensi, Mounir  
Strach, Michal  
Vavra, Jan  
Gadiyar, Chethana  
Bhowmik, Arghya
Buonsanti, Raffaella  
Date Issued

2019-06-01

Published in
Acs Catalysis
Volume

9

Issue

6

Start page

5035

End page

5046

Subjects

Chemistry, Physical

•

Chemistry

•

synthesis design

•

interfaces

•

colloidal nanocrystals

•

electrochemical co2

•

reduction

•

copper

•

ceria

•

electrochemical reduction

•

carbon-dioxide

•

catalytic-activity

•

copper-ceria

•

cu

•

selectivity

•

trends

•

oxygen

•

methanol

•

ceo2

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
LNCE  
CIME  
Available on Infoscience
June 29, 2019
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/158669
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