Publication date: 21st July 2025
Direct air capture and electrochemical reduction of CO2 to industrially useful substances such as ethylene and methane are currently receiving significant attention. Current problems with electrochemical CO2 reduction include a lack of product controllability and long-term stability. Product selectivity depends on the material for the CO2-reducing cathode electrode and the cathode potential during the reaction. The type of metal and its crystal plane significantly influence the product formation. Although product controllability is insufficient, the Cu cathode is attractive due to its high efficiency in producing ethylene, which is an industrially valuable substance used as the precursor for plastics and other applications. Previous studies have proposed adding Ag to Cu [1]. Furthermore, increasing the effective surface area of the projected electrode area to enhance projected current density and reduce the size of the electrolytic cell is also necessary for practical applications.
We devised a method to surface-modify Cu electrodes using ionization tendency with Ag2SO4. Immersing the Cu electrode in sulfuric acid under ultrasonic agitation, with a small amount of Ag2SO4 added to the sulfuric acid, causes the surface of the Cu electrode to dissolve by the ionization tendency, creating numerous nm-sized holes. Furthermore, many reduced Ag particles form several nm-sized particles that cover the Cu electrode surface. This method can simultaneously achieve both the previously studied enhancement of effective electrode surface area and Ag addition. This method has the possibility of enabling increased current throughout the entire electrochemical cell. This study shows the evaluation of the surface morphology for Cu electrodes with and without surface modification by Ag2SO4 under various conditions, including the conditions of the electrode potential and products observed during CO₂ reduction.
nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.
Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.
Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics
The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.
The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.