Solar-driven liquid multi-carbon fuel production using a standalone perovskite–BiVO4 artificial leaf
Source abstract
Abstract
The synthesis of high energy-density liquid fuels from CO2 and H2O powered by sunlight has the potential to create a circular economy. Despite the progress in producing simple gaseous products, the assembly of unassisted photoelectrochemical devices for liquid multicarbon production remains a major challenge. Here, we assembled a standalone artificial leaf device by integrating an oxide-derived Cu94Pd6 electrocatalyst with perovskite-BiVO4 tandem light absorbers that couple CO2 reduction with water oxidation. The wired Cu94Pd6|perovskite-BiVO4 device provides a faradaic efficiency of ~7.5% for multicarbon alcohols (~1:1 ethanol and n-propanol), whereas the standalone artificial leaf produces ~1 µmol cm–2 alcohols after 20 h unassisted operation under AM1.5G irradiation with a rate of ~50 µmol h–1 gCuPd–1. This study demonstrates the production of multicarbon liquid fuels from CO2 over an artificial leaf and therefore brings us a step closer in using sunlight to generate value-added complex products.
Source: openaire · Quality: candidate unverified · Source record ↗
Research context
OpenAlex topics: CO2 Reduction Techniques and Catalysts · Advanced Photocatalysis Techniques · Perovskite Materials and Applications
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
References (50)
Show source-provided references
1. Concepcion, J. J., House, R. L., Papanikolas, J. M. & Meyer, T. J. Chemical approaches to artificial photosynthesis. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 109, 15560–15564 (2012).10.1073/pnas.1212254109 ↗
2. Hammarström, L. & Hammes-Schiffer, S. Artificial photosynthesis and solar fuels. Acc. Chem. Res. 42, 1859–1860 (2009).10.1021/ar900267k ↗
3. Benson, E. E., Kubiak, C. P., Sathrum, A. J. & Smieja, J. M. Electrocatalytic and homogeneous approaches to conversion of CO2 to liquid fuels. Chem. Soc. Rev. 38, 89–99 (2009).10.1039/B804323J ↗
4. Zhuang, T.-T. et al. Copper nanocavities confine intermediates for efficient electrosynthesis of C3 alcohol fuels from carbon monoxide. Nat. Catal. 1, 946–951 (2018).10.1038/s41929-018-0168-4 ↗
5. Rahaman, M., Dutta, A., Zanetti, A. & Broekmann, P. Electrochemical reduction of CO2 into multicarbon alcohols on activated Cu mesh catalysts: an identical location (IL) study. ACS Catal. 7, 7946–7956 (2017).10.1021/acscatal.7b02234 ↗
6. Zhuang, T.-T. et al. Steering post-C–C coupling selectivity enables high efficiency electroreduction of carbon dioxide to multi-carbon alcohols. Nat. Catal. 1, 421–428 (2018).10.1038/s41929-018-0084-7 ↗
7. Ji, L. et al. Highly selective electrochemical reduction of CO2 to alcohols on an FeP nanoarray. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 59, 758–762 (2020).10.1002/anie.201912836 ↗
8. Gu, Z. et al. Efficient electrocatalytic CO2 reduction to C2+ alcohols at defect-site-rich Cu surface. Joule 5, 429–440 (2021).10.1016/j.joule.2020.12.011 ↗
9. Wang, Z. et al. Efficient ambient-air-stable solar cells with 2D–3D heterostructured butylammonium-caesium-formamidinium lead halide perovskites. Nat. Energy 2, 17135 (2017).10.1038/nenergy.2017.135 ↗
10. Swarnkar, A. et al. Quantum dot induced phase stabilization of α-CsPbI3 perovskite for high-efficiency photovoltaics. Science 354, 92–95 (2016).10.1126/science.aag2700 ↗
11. Wang, Z. et al. High irradiance performance of metal–halide perovskites for concentrator photovoltaics. Nat. Energy 3, 855–861 (2018).10.1038/s41560-018-0220-2 ↗
12. Snaith, H. J. Present status and future prospects of perovskite photovoltaics. Nat. Mater. 17, 372–376 (2018).10.1038/s41563-018-0071-z ↗
13. Andrei, V. et al. Scalable triple-cation mixed-halide perovskite–BiVO4 tandems for bias-free water splitting. Adv. Energy Mater. 8, 1801403 (2018).10.1002/aenm.201801403 ↗
14. Zhang, H. et al. A sandwich-like organolead halide perovskite photocathode for efficient and durable photoelectrochemical hydrogen evolution in water. Adv. Energy Mater. 8, 1800795 (2018).10.1002/aenm.201800795 ↗
15. Pornrungroj, C. et al. Bifunctional perovskite–BiVO4 tandem devices for uninterrupted solar and electrocatalytic water splitting cycles. Adv. Funct. Mater. 31, 2008182 (2021).10.1002/adfm.202008182 ↗
16. Schreier, M. et al. Efficient photosynthesis of carbon monoxide from CO2 using perovskite photovoltaics. Nat. Commun. 6, 7326 (2015).10.1038/ncomms8326 ↗
17. Gao, J. et al. Solar water splitting with perovskite/silicon tandem cell and TiC-supported Pt nanocluster electrocatalyst. Joule 3, 2930–2941 (2019).10.1016/j.joule.2019.10.002 ↗
18. Luo, J. et al. Water photolysis at 12.3% efficiency via perovskite photovoltaics and Earth-abundant catalysts. Science 345, 1593–1596 (2014).10.1126/science.1258307 ↗
19. Zhang, H. et al. Carbon encapsulation of organic–inorganic hybrid perovskite toward efficient and stable photo-electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction. Adv. Energy Mater. 10, 2002105 (2020).10.1002/aenm.202002105 ↗
20. Bhattacharjee, S. et al. Reforming of soluble biomass- and plastic-derived waste using a bias-free Cu30Pd70|perovskite|Pt photoelectrochemical device. Adv. Funct. Mater. 32, 2109313 (2022).10.1002/adfm.202109313 ↗
21. Chen, J. et al. Compositionally screened eutectic catalytic coatings on halide perovskite photocathodes for photoassisted selective CO2 reduction. ACS Energy Lett. 4, 1279–1286 (2019).10.1021/acsenergylett.9b00751 ↗
22. Andrei, V., Reuillard, B. & Reisner, E. Bias-free solar syngas production by integrating a molecular cobalt catalyst with perovskite–BiVO4 tandems. Nat. Mater. 19, 189–194 (2020).10.1038/s41563-019-0501-6 ↗
23. Rahaman, M. et al. Selective CO production from aqueous CO2 using a Cu96In4 catalyst and its integration into a bias-free solar perovskite–BiVO4 tandem device. Energy Environ. Sci. 13, 3536–3543 (2020).10.1039/D0EE01279C ↗
24. Huan, T. N. et al. Low-cost high-efficiency system for solar-driven conversion of CO2 to hydrocarbons. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 116, 9735–9740 (2019).10.1073/pnas.1815412116 ↗
25. Gurudayal et al. Efficient solar-driven electrochemical CO2 reduction to hydrocarbons and oxygenates. Energy Environ. Sci. 10, 2222–2230 (2017).10.1039/C7EE01764B ↗
26. Roh, I. et al. Photoelectrochemical CO2 reduction toward multicarbon products with silicon nanowire photocathodes interfaced with copper nanoparticles. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 144, 8002–8006 (2022).10.1021/jacs.2c03702 ↗
27. Nitopi, S. et al. Progress and perspectives of electrochemical CO2 reduction on copper in aqueous electrolyte. Chem. Rev. 119, 7610–7672 (2019).10.1021/acs.chemrev.8b00705 ↗
28. Yu, J. et al. Recent progresses in electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction on copper-based catalysts toward multicarbon products. Adv. Funct. Mater. 31, 2102151 (2021).10.1002/adfm.202102151 ↗
29. Edwardes Moore, E. et al. A semi-artificial photoelectrochemical tandem leaf with a CO2-to-formate efficiency approaching 1%. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 60, 26303–26307 (2021).10.1002/anie.202110867 ↗
30. Kuhl, K. P., Cave, E. R., Abram, D. N. & Jaramillo, T. F. New insights into the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide on metallic copper surfaces. Energy Environ. Sci. 5, 7050–7059 (2012).10.1039/c2ee21234j ↗
31. Hori, Y., Wakebe, H., Tsukamoto, T. & Koga, O. Electrocatalytic process of CO selectivity in electrochemical reduction of CO2 at metal electrodes in aqueous media. Electrochim. Acta 39, 1833–1839 (1994).10.1016/0013-4686(94)85172-7 ↗
32. Dickinson, H. L. A. & Symes, M. D. Recent progress in CO2 reduction using bimetallic electrodes containing copper. Electrochem. Commun. 135, 107212 (2022).10.1016/j.elecom.2022.107212 ↗
33. Li, Y. C. et al. Binding site diversity promotes CO2 electroreduction to ethanol. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 141, 8584–8591 (2019).10.1021/jacs.9b02945 ↗
34. Ma, S. et al. Electroreduction of carbon dioxide to hydrocarbons using bimetallic Cu–Pd catalysts with different mixing patterns. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 139, 47–50 (2017).10.1021/jacs.6b10740 ↗
35. Lyu, Z. et al. Kinetically controlled synthesis of Pd–Cu janus nanocrystals with enriched surface structures and enhanced catalytic activities toward CO2 reduction. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 143, 149–162 (2021).10.1021/jacs.0c05408 ↗
36. Rahaman, M. et al. Selective n-propanol formation from CO2 over degradation-resistant activated PdCu alloy foam electrocatalysts. Green Chem. 22, 6497–6509 (2020).10.1039/D0GC01636E ↗
37. Li, J. et al. Enhanced multi-carbon alcohol electroproduction from CO via modulated hydrogen adsorption. Nat. Commun. 11, 3685 (2020).10.1038/s41467-020-17499-5 ↗
38. Gao, D. F. et al. Size-dependent electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 over Pd nanoparticles. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 137, 4288–4291 (2015).10.1021/jacs.5b00046 ↗
39. Zheng, Y. et al. Understanding the roadmap for electrochemical reduction of CO2 to multi-carbon oxygenates and hydrocarbons on copper-based catalysts. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 141, 7646–7659 (2019).10.1021/jacs.9b02124 ↗
40. Kortlever, R., Shen, J., Schouten, K. J. P., Calle-Vallejo, F. & Koper, M. T. M. Catalysts and reaction pathways for the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 6, 4073–4082 (2015).10.1021/acs.jpclett.5b01559 ↗
41. van Santen, R. A., Neurock, M. & Shetty, S. G. Reactivity theory of transition-metal surfaces: a Brønsted−Evans−Polanyi linear activation energy−free-energy analysis. Chem. Rev. 110, 2005–2048 (2010).10.1021/cr9001808 ↗
42. Dutta, A. et al. CO2 electrolysis—complementary operando XRD, XAS and Raman spectroscopy study on the stability of CuxO foam catalysts. J. Catal. 389, 592–603 (2020).10.1016/j.jcat.2020.06.024 ↗
43. Jiang, S., Klingan, K., Pasquini, C. & Dau, H. New aspects of operando Raman spectroscopy applied to electrochemical CO2 reduction on Cu foams. J. Chem. Phys. 150, 041718 (2019).10.1063/1.5054109 ↗
44. Gunathunge, C. M. et al. Spectroscopic observation of reversible surface reconstruction of copper electrodes under CO2 reduction. J. Phys. Chem. C 121, 12337–12344 (2017).10.1021/acs.jpcc.7b03910 ↗
45. Toma, F. M. et al. Mechanistic insights into chemical and photochemical transformations of bismuth vanadate photoanodes. Nat. Commun. 7, 12012 (2016).10.1038/ncomms12012 ↗
46. Uekert, T., Pichler, C. M., Schubert, T. & Reisner, E. Solar-driven reforming of solid waste for a sustainable future. Nat. Sustain. 4, 383–391 (2021).10.1038/s41893-020-00650-x ↗
47. Bhattacharjee, S. et al. Photoelectrochemical CO2-to-fuel conversion with simultaneous plastic reforming. Nat. Synth. 2, 182–192 (2023).10.1038/s44160-022-00196-0 ↗
48. Nguyen, T. N. & Dinh, C.-T. Gas diffusion electrode design for electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction. Chem. Soc. Rev. 49, 7488–7504 (2020).10.1039/D0CS00230E ↗
49. Allam, N. K. & Grimes, C. A. Electrochemical fabrication of complex copper oxide nanoarchitectures via copper anodization in aqueous and non-aqueous electrolytes. Mater. Lett. 65, 1949–1955 (2011).10.1016/j.matlet.2011.03.105 ↗
50. Lu, H. et al. Single-source bismuth (transition metal) polyoxovanadate precursors for the scalable synthesis of doped BiVO4 photoanodes. Adv. Mater. 30, 1804033 (2018).10.1002/adma.201804033 ↗