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Tuning of Catalytic Activity by Thermoelectric Materials for Carbon Dioxide Hydrogenation
Author(s) -
Achour Abdenour,
Chen Kan,
Reece Michael J.,
Huang Zhaorong
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
advanced energy materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 10.08
H-Index - 220
eISSN - 1614-6840
pISSN - 1614-6832
DOI - 10.1002/aenm.201701430
Subject(s) - thermoelectric effect , catalysis , materials science , selectivity , thermoelectric materials , chemical engineering , work function , fermi level , thermodynamics , organic chemistry , metal , chemistry , metallurgy , physics , quantum mechanics , electron , engineering
An innovative use of a thermoelectric material (BiCuSeO) as a support and promoter of catalysis for CO 2 hydrogenation is reported here. It is proposed that the capability of thermoelectric materials to shift the Fermi level and work function of a catalyst lead to an exponential increase of catalytic activity for catalyst particles deposited on its surface. Experimental results show that the CO 2 conversion and CO selectivity are increased significantly by a thermoelectric Seebeck voltage. This suggests that the thermoelectric effect can not only increase the reaction rate but also change chemical equilibrium, which leads to the change of thermodynamic equilibrium for the conversion of CO 2 in its hydrogenation reactions. It is also shown that this thermoelectric promotion of catalysis enables BiCuSeO oxide itself to have a high catalytic activity for CO 2 hydrogenation. The generic nature of the mechanism suggests the possibility that many catalytic chemical reactions can be tuned in situ to achieve much higher reaction rates, or at lower temperatures, or have better desired selectivity through changing the backside temperature of the thermoelectric support.