Bottom-up catalyst design for electrochemical CO2 reduction via multi-material 3D printing of metals at micro- and nanoscale

• Applicant: Dr. Dmitry Momotenko
• Subject Area: Synthesis and Properties of Functional Materials ; Physical Chemistry of Solids and Surfaces, Material Characterisation ; Physical Chemistry of Molecules, Liquids and Interfaces, Biophysical Chemistry
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 528084749

Atmospheric emissions of CO2 pose a serious threat on the global scale, requiring immediate action to mitigate the effects on the climate change. Electrochemical CO2 reduction is probably one of the most efficient ways to approach this challenge, as it in principle should allow to re-cycle atmospheric CO2 into value products by using electrical energy generated from renewable sources. To approach economic viability, this requires new catalytic materials that would be capable to generate value chemicals (hydrocarbons, alcohols etc) with a chain of two or more carbon atoms. Efficient, selective and high-throughput (electro)catalytic materials are urgently needed to achieve this goal. In this project, new unconventional electrocatalytic interfaces for CO2 reduction will be developed and investigated. The overarching goal of this project is to examine a hypothesis that spatial confinement and bimetallic effects combined together should enable higher selectivity of the electrochemical CO2 conversion towards high-added value chemicals. While there is already a convincing literature evidence that this approach holds potential for this promise, there is currently no synthesis methods that can allow the desired geometrical complexity and material distribution to allow systematic examination of this concept in CO2 reduction catalysis. In this project, new micro- and nanoscale 3D printing technology to tackle this challenge in catalyst design will be developed. Based on a concept of meniscus-confined nanofabrication, capable to produce fully dense metallic features with dimensions down to tens and hundreds of nanometers (higher resolution than conventional additive manufacturing by 3 orders of magnitude), this new technology will open up ways to incorporate several materials into a single structure. Bimetallic Cu-Au catalysts fabricated in this manner will allow a systematic examination of the overarching hypothesis that three-dimensional bimetallic features can be finely tuned for specific product distribution by varying three essential variables: the chemical composition, the overall design, and the geometrical confinement (spacing) between individual catalytic components of the overall interface.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants