A Cu-Pd alloy catalyst with partial phase separation for the electrochemical CO_(2) reduction reaction

Cu catalysts can convert CO_(2) through an electrochemical reduction reaction into a variety of useful carbon-based products.However,this capability provides an obstacle to increasing the selectivity for a single product.Herein,we report a simple fabrication method for a Cu-Pd alloy catalyst for use in a membrane electrode assembly(MEA)-based CO_(2) electrolyzer for the electrochemical CO_(2) reduction reaction(ECRR)with high selectivity for CO production.When the composition of the Cu-Pd alloy catalyst was fabricated at 6:4,the selectivity for CO increased and the production of multi-carbon compounds and hydrogen is suppressed.Introducing a Cu-Pd alloy catalyst with 6:4 ratio as the cathode of the MEAbased CO_(2) electrolyzer showed a CO faradaic efficiency of 92.8%at 2.4 V_(cell).We assumed that these results contributed from the crystal planes on the surface of the Cu-Pd alloy.The phases of the Cu-Pd alloy catalyst were partially separated through annealing to fabricate a catalyst with high selectivity for CO at low voltage and C_(2)H_4 at high voltage.The results of CO-stripping testing confirmed that when Cu partially separates from the lattice of the Cu-Pd alloy,the desorption of~*CO is suppressed,suggesting that C-C coupling reaction is favored.

Partial pore blockage and polymer chain rigidification phenomena in PEO/ZIF-8 mixed matrix membranes synthesized by in situ polymerization

Nanostructured zeolitic imidazolate frameworks(ZIF-8) was incorporated into the mixture of poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether acrylate(PEGMEA) and pentaerythritol triacrylate(PETA) to synthesize mixed matrix membranes(MMMs) by in situ polymerization for CO_2/CH_4 separation. The solvent-free polymerization between PEGMEA and PETA was induced by UV light with 1-hydroxylcyclohexyl phenyl ketone as initiator. The chemical structural characterization was performed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The morphology was characterized by scanning electron microscope. The average chain-to-chain distance of the polymer chains in MMMs was investigated by X-ray diffraction. The thermal property was evaluated by differential scanning calorimetry. The CH_4 and CO_2 gas transport properties of MMMs are reported. The relationship between gas permeation–separation performances or physical properties and ZIF-8 loading is also discussed. However, the permeation–separation performance was not improved in Robeson upper bound plot compared with original polymer membrane as predicted. The significant partial pore blockage and polymer rigidification effect around the ZIFs confirmed by the increase in glass temperature and the decrease in the d-spacing, were mainly responsible for the failure in performance improvement, which offset the high diffusion induced by porous ZIF-8.