Primary Submission Contact

Marcus Ochsendorf

Faculty Sponsor

Haiying He

Faculty Sponsor Email Address

haiying.he@valpo.edu

College

Arts and Sciences

Department/Program

Physics and Astronomy

Document Type

Poster Presentation

Date

Fall 10-27-2017

Abstract

In this study, five copper-palladium clusters supported on defective graphene were investigated as catalysts for the electrochemical reduction of CO2 using the first-principles approach and the computational hydrogen electrode model. The limiting potential to reduce CO2 to CH4 using five different copper-palladium catalysts was determined. Of all the catalysts studied, the best one was the Cu2Pd cluster. This cluster showed the lowest necessary overpotential (0.93 V) out of all the catalysts examined to produce CH4. Reaction pathways to produce a variety of C1 products CO, HCOOH, HCHO, CH3OH and CH4 was studied in detail for Cu2Pd. From the pathways, it was determined that it will likely produce CH4 and HCOOH.

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