Proceedings of MATSUS Spring 2024 Conference (MATSUS24)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.matsus.2024.323
Publication date: 18th December 2023
To date 80% of worldwide energy is derived from fossil fuels, which is unsustainable in the mid-long term. Solar fuels are promising candidates for replacing fossil fuels as energy sources.[1] However, its renewable and clean generation is still a great challenge. A particularly attractive solution is artificial photosynthesis, which follows the blueprint of the photosynthetic processes found in plants or phototrophic microorganisms in which carbohydrates are made from H2O and CO2 using solar energy. Various reactions are under study, including water splitting, where water is converted into hydrogen fuel and oxygen, and CO2 reduction, where CO2 and electrons are converted into carbon-based fuels (e.g.CH4, CH3OH, etc.) and/or useful chemical feedstocks (e.g. CO, ethylene, etc.). However, the practical development of these technologies is still hampered by the lack of selective, cost-efficient catalysts able to speed up the redox areactions involved, namely oxygen evolution, CO2 reduction and hydrogen evolution reactions (OER, CO2RR and HER, respectively).
Both molecular and metal/metal-oxide species are plausible candidates for efficiently catalyze these processes. If durability and the attainment of high current densities are the main challenge for molecular HER/OER/CO2RR catalysts, slow reaction rates are common when their counterparts at the nanoscale are employed. Furthermore, the reduced mechanistic knowledge and lack of well-controlled synthetic strategies to fine-tune these species prevents the rational development of more selective nanocatalysts for these transformations.[2]
This contribution deals with the work carried out in our laboratories to unravel the key factors able to change these last general trends by means of tunable surface-functionalized nanocatalysts.[3] This strategy allowed obtaining stable and efficient OER (photo)catalysts based on 1st-row transition metal oxide species,[4],[5] fast and rugged Ru-based (photo)cathodes[6],[7],[8],[9] superior to state-of-the-art Pt/C for HER, and selective photocatalyst for the CO2RR.[10]
Sustained support from MICINN/FEDER by projects PID2019-104171RB-I00 and TED2021-129237B-I00 is gratefully acknowledged. L. F. is indebted to the Ramón y Cajal Program (RYC2018-025394-I Fellowship). X. S. thanks ICREA for the ICREA Academia prize 2020.
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