Theoretical Studies of Single-Site Catalysts for Efficient Electrochemical CO2 Reduction

Identifier:  TDX:3136

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TDX3136

Authors:  Pršlja, Paulina

Abstract:
The development of electrochemistry has the potential to use CO2 as a feedstock for the sustainable production of chemicals and materials and it has an important impact on the chemical industry. Single site catalyst is a promising new material for achieving high activity and selectivity towards CO and C1 hydrocarbons. The unique structure of carbon-based catalyst makes it a good compressor of competing Hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) because the single site requires an ontop binding of hydrogen. In this thesis, I applied DFT methods and computational electrochemical concepts for understanding the processes of CO2 reduction (eCO2RR). In chapter 3 I described the importance of single-site structural features catalyst, besides the basic concept of the coordination chemistry that is applied to understand eCO2RR activity of the catalyst. The aim of chapter 4 was to establish experimental and theoretical correlations between physicochemical and catalytic properties for the eCO2RR towards CO for MNC catalyst. The process of reconstruction of Ni nanoparticles by the disintegration of Ni(CO)2 on N-doped carbon materials is described in chapter 5. Finally, in chapter 6 I unraveled the selectivity of CO2 reduction products that were influenced by potential and the temperature over modeled CoTPP/MWCNT catalyst.