TA Success Stories: Single Atom Catalyst For The Electrochemical Conversion Of CO2 And Nitrate (ICCON) from the “Institut Européen des Membranes” (IEM) and University of Montpellier to UCA

17/10/2022 | Success Stories

TA Success Stories: Single Atom Catalyst For The Electrochemical Conversion Of CO2 And Nitrate (ICCON) from the “Institut Européen des Membranes” (IEM) and University of Montpellier to UCA

University of Cádiz and University of Montpellier logos
University of Cádiz and University of Montpellier logos

Many successful projects stem from transnational access provided by ESTEEM3. This week, we focus on the “Single Atom Catalyst For The Electrochemical Conversion Of CO2 And Nitrate” project from the “Institut Européen des Membranes” (IEM) and University of Montpellier (France) which was granted access to the University of Cádiz (Spain), one of the ESTEEM3 TA providers.

 

 

Introduction

The ICCON project, carried by Dr. Damien Voiry from the “Institut Européen des Membranes” (IEM) and University of Montpellier (France), focused on combined high-spatial and spectral resolution characterization of nanostructured catalysts which showed enhanced chemical properties for several key catalytic reactions such as electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) and nitrate reduction reaction (NO3RR).

The project was granted access to facilities and expertise of the Advanced Division of Electron Microscopy (DME-UCA) facility of the University of Cádiz (Spain) in September 2021, as part of the Transnational Access campaign of ESTEEM3, all the experiments and data analyses being performed by Dr. Luc Lajaunie (University of Cádiz, Spain).

The main results of the project

Most of our work was focused on the nitrate reduction reaction (NO3RR) and on the CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR). In particular, CO2RR under ambient conditions, which can be coupled with renewable electricity sources, represents a promising approach to reuse the CO2 emissions, while generating value-added fuels and chemicals. For instance, starting from the graphitization of Ni-based metal organic framework, we were able to synthetize single-atom nickel catalysts (SAC) on two-dimensional nitrogen-doped carbon nanosheets. In particular, by combining TEM (Fig. 1) with other spectroscopic techniques, we highlighted the single atomic nature of the catalyst. The SAC catalysts reached high performance activity and energy efficiencies. Another key result was the synthesis and characterization of a single atom catalyst based on iron single atoms supported on 2D MoS2 nanosheets. The catalyst demonstrates near-unity selectivity for the electrosynthesis of ammonia when coupled to an external solar cell.

Successful outcomes

  • 3.4% Solar-to-Ammonia Efficiency from Nitrate Using Fe Single Atomic Catalyst Supported on MoS2 Nanosheets, Advanced Functional Materials 32 (18), 2108316 (2022), 10.1002/adfm.202270106
  • Improved electrochemical conversion of CO2 to multicarbon products by using molecular doping, Nature Communications 12 (7210) (2021), 10.1038/s41467-021-27456-5
  • 2.6% cm–2 Single-Pass CO2-to-CO Conversion Using Ni ingle Atoms Supported on Ultra-Thin Carbon Nanosheets in a Flow Electrolyzer, ACS Catalysis 11 (20), 12701-12711 (2021), 10.1021/acscatal.1c03231