Proceedings of MATSUS Fall 2023 Conference (MATSUSFall23)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.matsus.2023.003
Publication date: 18th July 2023
The carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO2RR), in particular electrochemically, to produce carbonaceous fuels is considered as a viable approach to store energy and to enable a CO2-neutral carbon management. Besides CO2RR, there is an additional strong demand for benign electrochemical reduction of other important heavy nonmetal oxo species (e.g., SiO2, phosphine oxides, SO2) with thermodynamically stable E-O bonds, which accrue in large quantities in industry. In this respect, the energy-intense deoxygenation of oxo compounds of silicon, phosphorus and sulfur is of particular technological importance because they represent one of the main feedstocks to produce important molecules and functional materials. For example, the release of elemental silicon, phosphorus (P4) and sulfur (S8) from naturally occurring minerals (e.g., silicate, phosphate, sulfate) follows energy-intensive chemical routes.
Thus, the established chemical reduction routes to deoxygenate such oxo precursors produce tons of reagent waste or, in the case of carbothermal treatment of minerals, afford a lot of CO2. On the contrary, electrochemical strategies developed for the selective deoxygenation of E-O compounds remain as a feasible alternative powered by renewable electricity instead of fossil energy. Moderate reaction conditions, a large scope in experiment design for selective reactions, easy product isolation and zero reagent waste by applying electrochemical methods offer a promising solution to overcome the drawbacks of chemical reduction routes. This talk summarizes the emergence of electrochemical strategies developed for the reduction of selected examples of E-O/E=O compounds with E = silicon, phosphorus and sulfur in the past few decades and highlights opportunities and future challenges. [1]
I wish to thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Cluster of Excellence Unifying Systems for Catalysis) for support.