Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CO2RR (Sustainable liquid fuels from CO2 electroreduction)
Período documentado: 2020-07-01 hasta 2022-06-30
This project addresses the low conversion energy efficiency between chemicals and electricity, which economically limits the wide-spread adoption of renewable energy technologies.
Renewable electricity becomes more and more cheap and accessible, and could be used to electrify industry and automobile to mitigate our dependence on fossil fuels. However, the current technology for electricity-chemicals conversion remains too low to be competitive with conventional ones. The key technological limitation lies on electrocatalysis, which is closely related to an electrified interface. It is therefore important to enhance electricity-chemical conversion (achieved via electrochemical reactions occurring at electrified interface), which requires fundamental understanding of how the structure of electrified interface impacts the electrocatalysis (i.e. conversion efficiency), and further transferring such understanding to practical applications by advancing materials and building devices.
The overall objectives are providing broad guideline for future design of electrified interface for target electrochemical reactions, and practical demonstration of electricity-chemical conversion.
Renewable electricity becomes more and more cheap and accessible, and could be used to electrify industry and automobile to mitigate our dependence on fossil fuels. However, the current technology for electricity-chemicals conversion remains too low to be competitive with conventional ones. The key technological limitation lies on electrocatalysis, which is closely related to an electrified interface. It is therefore important to enhance electricity-chemical conversion (achieved via electrochemical reactions occurring at electrified interface), which requires fundamental understanding of how the structure of electrified interface impacts the electrocatalysis (i.e. conversion efficiency), and further transferring such understanding to practical applications by advancing materials and building devices.
The overall objectives are providing broad guideline for future design of electrified interface for target electrochemical reactions, and practical demonstration of electricity-chemical conversion.
The Fellow specifically focused on fundamental studies of linking electrode-electrolyte interfacial properties with the activity/selectivity of electrochemical reactions based on single-crystal electrode technique, with the goal of establishing general design guidelines for the development of advanced materials and systems to drive electricity-chemicals interconversion.
By collaborating with other institute, the Fellow designed and synthesized morphology-controlled Cu nano-catalysts and built zero-gap membrane-electrode-assembly CO2RR electrolyser.
The project research results in one publication with many other manuscript being under preparation, one conference presentation and three invited talks.
By collaborating with other institute, the Fellow designed and synthesized morphology-controlled Cu nano-catalysts and built zero-gap membrane-electrode-assembly CO2RR electrolyser.
The project research results in one publication with many other manuscript being under preparation, one conference presentation and three invited talks.
Potential impacts of this project include the promotion of global energy transformation from fossil sources to renewables, and the establishment of new economic models based on sustainable energy, such as the hydrogen economics. Data collected in this project can be also important reference for techno-economic analysis for renewable energy techniques.