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.com
Volume 7
Biosensors Journal
ISSN: 2090-4967
Electrochemistry 2018
June 11-12, 2018
June 11-12, 2018 | Rome, Italy
4
th
International Conference on
Electrochemistry
Nanowire arrays for selective and durable CO
2
reduction
David P Fenning
University of California, USA
T
he rapid changes in the global climate during the last century have been extensively ascribed to anthropogenic CO
2
emissions caused by the combustion of fossil fuels. Efforts are then required to decrease the consumption of fossil fuels
and to develop methods to produce renewable carbon- based fuels. One promising approach is artificial photosynthesis, a
process in which solar energy is used to drive the reduction of CO
2
to fuels or valuable chemicals. A pressing need exists to
develop an efficient, robust, selective and earth-abundant catalyst for the CO
2
reduction reaction (CO
2
RR), which can be used
directly as a cathode in a photovoltaic-electrolyzer system or coated on an efficient light absorbing photocathode material
in a photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell. Copper (Cu) is a non-toxic and earth-abundant catalyst for the CO
2
RR, and there are
facile and scalable methods to make its nanostructures, etc. and as such it is arguably the best-studied catalyst for the CO
2
reduction. However, its reported performance (considering selectivity, durability, and efficiency) so far is too low for practical
applications. Herein, we present our efforts to nanoengineer efficient CO
2
RR catalysts. Among them, I will highlight our
production of Cu(OH)
2
nanowire arrays, synthesized by a facile and scalable solution growth method, for selective and durable
CO
2
reduction. The Cu(OH)
2
nanowire array shows selective CO
2
reduction to C
2
-C
3
products, with a faradaic efficiency of
~40% for C
2
+
products. The catalysts exhibit durable CO
2
reaction of over 24 hours with a minimal change in faradaic efficiency
of each gas/liquid product and total faradaic efficiency.
dfenning@eng.ucsd.eduBiosens J 2018, Volume 7
DOI: 10.4172/2090-4967-C1-003