MOF derived carbon nanofiber electrodes for the electrocatalytic reduction of CO2

Fast-growing worldwide energy demand and a significant impact on air pollution with increasing emissions of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO₂) are resulting in global warming and human health issues. New technologies need to be developed urgently that can directly convert CO₂ with excess electricity from sustainable sources (solar, wind) into storable fuels and chemicals. The major obstacles to convert CO₂ into energy-bearing products is the high stability of the CO2 mole-cule and the lack of efficient catalysts. Electrocatalysis is an attractive, low temperature catalytic pro-cess for the reduction of CO₂ because it activates CO₂ by direct input of electrical energy. Only a few products, such as CO and formic acid, have been produced selectively and with some acceptable pro-duction rates through the electrocatalytic CO₂ conversion (ECR), using state of the art catalysts. The next step towards the (direct) fabrication of “CO2 neutral fuels” in a sustainable energy system is the development of more efficient and selective CO₂ reduction catalysts. This PhD thesis aims to develop and implement bimetallic catalyst structures into carbon nano-fiber architectures for electrocatalytic CO₂ reduction, including research on MOF derived nanofiber catalysts as gas diffusion electrodes (GDEs). The project is an Alliance project with Technion, a leading partner university of DTU in Israel.