Abstract
Electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide is one of the methods which have the capability to recycle CO2 into valuable products for energy and industrial applications. This research article describes about a new electrocatalyst “reduced graphene oxide supported gold nanoparticles” for selective electrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide. The main aim for conversion of CO2 to CO lies in the fact that the latter is an important component of syn gas (a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide), which is then converted into liquid fuel via well-known industrial process called Fischer-Tropsch process. In this work, we have synthesized different composites of the gold nanoparticles supported on defective reduced graphene oxide to evaluate the catalytic activity of reduced graphene oxide (RGO)-supported gold nanoparticles and the role of defective RGO support towards the electrochemical reduction of CO2. Electrochemical and impedance measurements demonstrate that higher concentration of gold nanoparticles on the graphene support led to remarkable decrease in the onset potential of 240 mV and increase in the current density for CO2 reduction. Lower impedance and Tafel slope values also clearly support our findings for the better performance of RGOAu than bare Au for CO2 reduction.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the Human Resource development (HRD) for financial support and Advanced Material Research Centre (AMRC), IIT Mandi, for providing experimental facilities. AH thanks IIT Mandi for its seed grant and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), India, for providing financial support under Young Scientist Project Scheme.
Funding
This work was supported by Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) with the grant no: YSS/2014/000997 under Young Scientist Scheme.
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Saquib, M., Halder, A. Reduced graphene oxide supported gold nanoparticles for electrocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide. J Nanopart Res 20, 46 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-018-4146-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-018-4146-1