Preparation of Metal Amalgam Electrodes and Their Selective Electrocatalytic CO<sub>2</sub> Reduction for Formate Production

oleh: Syed Asad Abbas, Seong-Hoon Kim, Hamza Saleem, Sung-Hee Ahn, Kwang-Deog Jung

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2019-04-01

Deskripsi

Electrochemical CO<sub>2</sub> reduction to produce formate ions has studied for the sustainable carbon cycle. Mercury in the liquid state is known to be an active metallic component to selectively convert CO<sub>2</sub> to formate ions, but it is not scalable to use as an electrode in electrochemical CO<sub>2</sub> reduction. Therefore, scalable amalgam electrodes with different base metals are tested to produce formate by an electrochemical CO<sub>2</sub> reduction. The amalgam electrodes are prepared by the electrodeposition of Hg on the pre-electrodeposited Pd, Au, Pt and Cu nanoparticles on the glassy carbon. The formate faradaic efficiency with the Pd, Au, Pt and Cu is lower than 25%, while the one with the respective metal amalgams is higher than 50%. Pd amalgam among the tested samples shows the highest formate faradic efficiency and current density. The formate faradaic efficiency is recorded 85% at &#8722;2.1 V vs SCE and the formate current density is &#8722;6.9 mA cm<sup>&#8722;2</sup>. It is concluded that Pd<sub>2</sub>Hg<sub>5</sub> alloy on the Pd amalgam electrode is an active phase for formate production in the electrochemical CO<sub>2</sub> reduction.