Biochar-Supported BiO_x for Effective Electrosynthesis of Formic Acid from Carbon Dioxide Reduction

Abstract

The electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) to value-added chemicals and fuels has attracted worldwide interest for its potential to address various contemporary global issues such as CO2-related climate change, the earth’s carbon deficit and the energy crisis. In the development of this technology, many efforts have been focused on the design of inexpensive, eco-friendly and effective catalysts. In this work, a bismuth (Bi)-based material was simply synthesized via a scalable method and fully characterized by physical, chemical and electrochemical techniques. The catalyst material consisted of Bi/Bi2O3 nanoparticles and a biochar prevenient from the pyrolysis of brewed coffee waste. It was observed that the surface of the biochar was thoroughly decorated with nanoparticles. Due to its uniform surface, the biochar–BiOx electrode demonstrated good selectivity for CO2 reduction, showing a faradaic efficiency of more than 90% for CO and HCOOH formation in a wide potential range. Particularly, the selectivity for HCOOH reached more than 80% from −0.9 V to −1.3 V vs the reversible hydrogen electrode and peaks at 87%. Besides the selectivity, the production rate of HCOOH also achieved significant values with a maximum of 59.6 mg cm−2 h−1, implying a good application potential for biochar–BiOx material in the conversion of CO2 to HCOOH.

Keywords

• carbon dioxide reduction
• electrochemistry
• catalyst
• bismuth
• formic acid
• production rate