Prof. Wenxing Yang’s group in the Center of Artificial Photosynthesis for Solar Fuels at Westlake University recently published a research article in Journal of the American Chemical Society. The paper is titled “Spontaneous Reconstruction of Copper Active Sites during the Alkaline CORR: Degradation and Recovery of the Performance”.
Using CO molecules as both reactants and structural probes, this study employed spatiotemporally resolved in situ surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy and focused ion beam transmission electron microscopy (FIB-TEM) to deeply investigated the mechanisms of Cu reconstruction and impacts on CORR performance. It is discovered that the nanoparticles/grains formed over reaction time on Cu surface the are key factors for the degradation of CORR performance. Consequently, an effective strategy was proposed to recover CORR performance by removing reconstructed sites and structures via oxidative dissolution.
Ph.D. student Qiliang Liu is the first author. Prof. Wenxing Yang from Center of Artificial Photosynthesis for Solar Fuels at Westlake University is the corresponding author.