Seminar

Povzetek

The increasing concentration of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere has emerged as an urgent global concern due to its role in climate change and global warming. Electrochemical CO2 reduction (ECR) on copper has gained considerable attention as a means not only to reduce CO2 emissions but also to produce valuable chemicals and fuels (e.g. ethylene, ethanol, propanol etc.). For commercial applications, catalysts must exhibit high faradaic efficiency and current density for a specific product, and, equally important, long-term operational stability. In recent years, substantial progress has been made in improving the activity and selectivity, however, numerous studies have highlighted the substantial morphological restructuring of copper-based catalysts during operation. Despite copper is often-considered noble, it readily degrades during ECR causing gradual loss of selectivity for ECR at the cost of parasitic hydrogen evolution reaction. Since morphology is crucial for both the ECR activity and selectivity of copper catalysts, a comprehension of this phenomenon is essential for developing strategies to mitigate instability and improve catalyst durability, addressing one of the critical barriers to the industrialization of ECR.