Tesi di Dottorato (Production of Solar Fuels using CO2)

In view of the recent alarming rate of depletion of fossil fuel reserves and the drastic rise in the CO2 levels in the atmosphere leading to global warming and severe climate changes, tapping into all kinds of renewable energy sources has been among the top priorities in the research fields across the globe. One of the many such pathways is CO2 reduction to fuels using renewable energies, more commonly referred as artificial photosynthetic cells or artificial leaves or photo-electro-catalytic (PEC) cells. The key objective of the present PhD work was to conduct in-depth studies on two different electro-catalytic CO2 reduction systems: electrolyte-less cell (gas phase) and electrolytic cell (liquid phase). In particular, a novel lab scale liquid phase cell, on the similar lines of the previously realized gas phase cell at the University of Messina, was developed and used to convert electro-catalytically CO2 to more value-added products. The work was carried out at the Laboratory CASPE/INSTM of the University of Messina (Department of Electronic Engineering, Industrial Chemistry and Engineering). During the second year, a six-month period was spent at the École supérieure de chimie, physique, électronique de Lyon (CPE Lyon), where organometallic routes were explored for the synthesis of novel composite materials to be used as electrocatalysts in the CO2 reduction process. Experimental tests were carried out on various types of catalysts in both the gas and liquid phase cells to understand the different selectivity, productivity and the reaction products obtained. Liquid phase, in fact, has been the most studied process in literature, but some issues mainly related to CO2 solubility and types of products formed (i.e. mainly formic acid), have never be allowed to pass the lab scale stage. The general aim of this PhD was to prepare novel metal doped nanocarbon substrates, which are very different with respect to the conventional metal bulk layers used as electrocatalysts in CO2 reduction, and test them both in gas phase (to take advantage of these conditions, i.e easy recovery and improved quality of the products) and in liquid phase (to have a better comparison with conditions typically adopted in literature). For the studies on the electro-catalytic reduction of CO2 in gas phase cell, a series of electrodes (based on Cu, Fe, Pt and Cu/Fe metal nanoparticles – NPs - deposited on carbon nanotubes – CNTs - or carbon black and then placed at the interface between a Nafion membrane and a gas diffusion-layer) were prepared. The results, evidencing the various types of products formed and their different productivities, are very promising. Under electrolyte-less conditions, the formation of ≥C1 products (such as ethanol, acetone and isopropanol) were observed, the highest being for Fe and closely followed by Pt, evidencing that also non-noble metals can be used as efficient catalysts under these conditions. To enhance the productivities of the CO2 reduction, a different set of electrodes were also prepared based on substituted Zeolitic Imidazolate (SIM-1) type MOF coatings during a stay at CPE Lyon and Institut de recherches sur la catalyse et l'environnement de Lyon (IRCELYON). Particularly, the catalysts tested were MOF-based Fe-CNTs, Pt-CNTs and Cu/Fe-CNTs. There was a significant change in the reaction products and in the selectivity towards the end-products. Particularly, especially for the MOF modified Pt based catalyst, there was an increase in the C-products and also a better selectivity towards higher C-products. Moving to the studies on the electro-catalytic reduction of CO2 in liquid phase cell, a similar set of electrodes were prepared. Initially, electrodes based on metal NPs of Cu, Fe, Pt, Ru and Co deposited on CNTs or carbon black were studied for their CO2 reduction capability. The relative order of productivity in CO2 electro-catalytic reduction in these series of electrodes was found to be different between the gas and liquid phase cells indicating the different reaction pathways. For liquid phase conditions, in terms of net C-products, catalytic electrodes based on Pt topped the class, closely followed by Ru and Cu, while Fe got the lowest position. The probable underlying reaction mechanism was also provided. In order to improve further the performances of the CO2 reduction in liquid phase conditions, a metal NPs size dependant study on the electro-catalytic reduction of CO2 to fuels was carried out. This study was performed using electrodes based on metal NPs of Ru, Fe, Pt and Cu loaded on CNTs and then transferred on a gas diffusion layers (GDL). Varied sized metal NPs have been synthesized using different techniques: (i) impregnation route to achieve NPs in the size range of 10-50 nm; (ii) organometallic approach to synthesize uniform and ultrafine NPs in the size range of 1-5 nm (i.e., Fe NPs were synthesized through a novel synthesis route to attain 13 nm NPs);(iii) Nanowire (NW) top-down approach to obtain ultrafine copper metal NPs in the size range of 2-3.8 nm. Particularly, the novelty of nanowire approach is the ability to obtain very small metal NPs starting from the synthesis of Cu NWs and then transferring the Cu onto the carbon surface, taking advantage of the different inter-forces of between Cu NWs and the functional groups present on the partially oxidized CNT surface. Furthermore, unlike the case of organo-metallic approach, this approach allows a preparation under air avoiding the use of potentially demanding inert atmospheric conditions. The enhancements in the fuel productivity were found to be 5-30 times higher for the smaller metal NPs obtained via organo-metallic route or nanowire route as compared to the larger metal NPs obtained via impregnation route. The results signify that the smaller sized metal NPs loading on the CNTs have a prevailing role in the catalytic performance and the selectivity towards different products. Moreover, the percentage of metal NPs loading was significantly reduced from 10 to 1-2 wt. % producing higher or equivalent fuels for small NPs as compared to the larger NPs. The reusability of the working electrodes and long reaction times (until 24 hours) were also probed. A different set of electrodes based on nano-foams on metal foils, were also investigated to achieve further improvements in the electro-reduction of CO2 to fuels. These nano-foams or dendrites were prepared by electrochemical deposition technique. Optimization studies on the deposition of these foams were performed initially to fix the set of preparation conditions. Moreover, voltage optimization study was performed using cyclic voltammetry and full CO2 reduction tests to find the optimum voltage for the process. The nano-foam electrodes tested include Cu and Fe foams on Cu foil, Fe foil, Al foil, Inconel foil and Al grid/mesh. The enhancements in the fuel productivity for various foams were in the range of 2-10 times greater as compared to the highest net fuel productivity achieved using metal NPs doped carbon catalytic electrodes, from all the previous studies. Various characterizations and analysis tools were used to analyse the catalysts qualitatively and quantitatively, which include Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray Photo-electron spectroscopy (XPS), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET). To determine the fuel productivities, Ion Chromatography (IC), Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometer (GC-MS), Gas Chromatography (GC) were used.