(521aa) Towards Controlling the Morphology of Nanostructured Carbons Via CO2 Electroreduction in Molten Salt Electrolyte

In this presentation, we will present our efforts to control the electrochemical parameters and microenvironment towards to goal of conversion of CO₂ to carbon nanotubes and other nanostructured carbons with high Faradaic efficiency in molten salt electrolyte.

Overall, it is of great interest to capture and transform CO₂ into value-added products via electroreduction. Often, products obtained from CO₂ are hydrocarbons under aqueous conditions. However, carbon nanostructures also represent useful value-added products. In contrast to aqueous CO₂ electroreduction, molten salt electrochemistry offers a microenvironment that can convert CO₂ to cathodic solid carbon and anodic O₂ gas via an electrochemical CO₂ reduction reaction. This approach has strengths in terms of elimination of competitive hydrogen evolution, no need for complex and expensive catalysts, few side reactions, high CO₂ solubility, etc. Therefore, CO₂ electroreduction in molten salts opens up a new route to synthesize carbon nanostructures via a CO₂-negative approach.