Reduction of carbon dioxide using Cu2O photocathodes

Michael Grätzel^a, Marcel Schreier^a, David Tilley^a

^aEcole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

Proceedings of International Conference on New Advances in Materials Research for Solar Fuels Production (SolarFuel14)

Montréal, Canada, 2014 June 25th - 26th

Organizer: Thomas Hamann

Poster, Marcel Schreier, 002
Publication date: 16th April 2014

CO₂-derived fuels present an attractive way towards closing the anthropogenic carbon cycle, a process which is desirable due to the finite nature of fossil resources and their negative impact on the environment. Due to its sheer abundance, solar is the most attractive energy source to achieve the transformation of carbon dioxide into a fuel. Nevertheless, its diffuse nature requires the use of large surface area photoelectrochemical conversion devices. Thus, easy to produce conversion devices fabricated from cheap and abundant materials are required. Cuprous oxide [1, 2] is an attractive material since it shows good photoelectrochemical performance, is readily available and is produced in solution by an easy to carry out electrochemical deposition which has shown very good scalability. We introduce new nanostructured electrodes and combine multilayered Cu₂O photocathodes with established as well as with novel molecular catalysts to produce solar fuels derived from carbon dioxide.
[1] A. Paracchino, V. Laporte, K. Sivula, M. Grätzel and E. Thimsen, Nature Mater. 10, 456 (2011).
[2] S. D. Tilley, M. Schreier, J. Azevedo, M. Stefik, M. Graetzel, Adv. Funct. Mater. 24, 303 (2014).

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