X-ray spectroscopy of bimetallic catalysts for CO2 reduction reaction

The development of membrane-electrode assembly flow cells has led to rapid progress in CO2 electrolysis and efforts are currently focused on enhancing catalysts to achieve superior selectivity and activity levels. Bimetallic catalysts have been proposed to enhance the selectivity of the reaction towards the production of C2+ products. The role of the nature of the catalyst and its electronic and atomic structural evolution during the reaction remains however ambiguous. To deepen our understanding of the correlation between the coordination environment of Cu-based bimetallic catalysts and the CO2RR properties, we propose to perform operando X-ray spectroscopy. This project is part of an MSCA-DN (ECOMATES - grant agreement No 101072830) with the development of a tender X-ray operando cell as deliverable. Our project aims at elucidating the local coordination environment and the dynamic behavior of bimetallic catalysts during operation by using ex-situ and operando X-ray spectroscopy.