Effect of amines in CO2 reduction reaction in electrocatalysis employing coordination compounds

• Grant number: 24/00144-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Start date: October 01, 2024
• End date: July 19, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Chemistry - Inorganic Chemistry
• Principal Investigator: André Luiz Barboza Formiga
• Grantee: Maurício Portiolli Franco
• Supervisor: Ainara Nova
• Host Institution: Instituto de Química (IQ). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Oslo (UiO), Norway
• Associated to the scholarship: 22/04724-2 - Ligand design towards CO2conversion by coordination compounds, BP.PD

Abstract

The significant carbon dioxide emission in all kinds of activities, from daily routines to energy production and industrial processes, poses a serious environmental problem, as it is the most common greenhouse gas. Transformation of CO2 into industrial feedstock such as CO, formate, or methanol is one solution to retrieve a greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. However, the challenge lies in the fact that transforming CO2 into other products is not as simple. Its triatomic linear structure is highly stable, making the reduction process to other species difficult, with the required potential for the reduction of one electron being -1.9 V vs. NHE. One solution is toemploy electrocatalysts which need less energy to reduce CO2 and increase the kinetics of the reaction.One metal center that is widely used in CO2 reduction reaction is ruthenium withpolypyridine ligands such as bipyridine and terpyridine has been employed as a standard in electrocatalysts to ensure low overpotential and high selectivity for the reduction of CO2 instead hydrogen evolution reaction.Recently the use of amines as additives or incorporated into electrocatalysts as a proton shuttle or as a capture agent, gathered attention due to facilitating the formation of hydrogenated carbon products instead of CO. The use of a manganese complex with modified bipyridine ligands with tertiary amines increases the selectivity towards formic acid instead of CO or H2. Other groups also investigated the use of aminesas additives in ruthenium-based electrocatalysts. They showed the formation of more hydrogenated carbon atom products, such as formate and methanol depending on the ligand and the amine additive.To advance our goals of employing ruthenium-based electrocatalysts in CO2 reduction reaction products from CO to higher hydrogenated molecules we plan an internship at the University of Oslo with Dr. Ainara Nova to design new ligands coupling the redox-active polypyridine ligands with amine to act as a CO2 capture agent or a source of proton shuttle to enhance the selectivity towards C-H bonds.