Proceedings of MATSUS Spring 2024 Conference (MATSUS24)
Publication date: 18th December 2023
Electrocatalytic synthesis of urea by co-reduction of CO2 and activated-nitrogen species (NO3¯) has garnered significant attention to sustainably address the rising global need for nitrogen-based fertilizers (as opposed to the carbon-intensive Haber-Bosch-Meiser process). Despite numerous advances in achieving C-N coupling, the low urea yields at low current densities (16 μmol h-1 cm-1)[1] pose a significant challenge to its accurate quantification. The issue of nitrogen-based contamination from the surroundings, which leads to false positives in electrochemical ammonia synthesis,[2] is well known but relatively underexplored in the context of urea electrosynthesis.[3,4] Among various methods for urea detection, the conventional diacetylmonoxime-thiosemicarbazide (DAMO-TSC) colorimetric method has a low limit of quantification and is most commonly used. However, it is susceptible to environmental interferences, mainly NO2¯ as a significant by-product, leading to false positive or negative results. Here, we explore the role of NO2¯ in causing suppression or over-expression of urea and alleviate its effect with a modification in the traditional DAMO-TSC method.[5,6] The improved method can effectively remove NO2¯ up to 5 mM in the extracted electrolyte, allowing reliable and accurate urea quantification. Investigating the impact of our methodology using various catalysts on a gas diffusion electrode, we found that NO2¯ interference resulted in a twofold increase in the quantity of urea determined using the conventional DAMO-TSC method compared to the quantity determined after NO2¯ suppression.
Our findings highlight the importance of accurate urea quantification protocols to enable solid progress in sustainable C-N coupling technologies, ensuring reliable and reproducible results.
nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.
Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.
Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics
The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.
The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.