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Title: Surface Ligand Promotion of Carbon Dioxide Reduction through Stabilizing Chemisorbed Reactive Intermediates

Journal Article · · Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters

We have explored functionalizing metal catalysts with surface ligands as an approach to facilitate electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO2RR). To provide a molecular level understanding of the mechanism by which this enhancement occurs, we combine in situ spectroscopy analysis with an interpretation based on quantum mechanics (QM) calculations. We find that a surface ligand can play a critical role in stabilizing the chemisorbed CO2, which facilitates CO2 activation and leads to a 0.3 V decrease in the overpotential for carbon monoxide (CO) formation. Moreover, the presence of the surface ligand leads to nearly exclusive CO production. At -0.6 V (versus reversible hydrogen electrode, RHE), CO is the only significant product with a faradic efficiency of 93% and a current density of 1.9 mA cm–2. This improvement corresponds to 53-fold enhancement in turnover frequency compared with the Ag nanoparticles (NPs) without surface ligands.

Research Organization:
California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0004993
OSTI ID:
1467603
Journal Information:
Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, Vol. 9, Issue 11; ISSN 1948-7185
Publisher:
American Chemical SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 39 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (7)

Polydopamine Functionalized Cu Nanowires for Enhanced CO 2 Electroreduction Towards Methane journal October 2018
Understanding the role of functional groups of thiolate ligands in electrochemical CO 2 reduction over Au(111) from first-principles journal January 2019
Tuning Gold Nanoparticles with Chelating Ligands for Highly Efficient Electrocatalytic CO 2 Reduction journal August 2018
Tuning Structural and Compositional Effects in Pd-Au Nanowires for Highly Selective and Active CO 2 Electrochemical Reduction Reaction journal October 2018
Electronic structure benchmark calculations of inorganic and biochemical carboxylation reactions journal February 2019
Biosynthesized silver nanorings as a highly efficient and selective electrocatalysts for CO 2 reduction journal January 2019
Tuning Gold Nanoparticles with Chelating Ligands for Highly Efficient Electrocatalytic CO 2 Reduction journal August 2018

Figures / Tables (4)


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