Ella Fidment

Email: e.fidment2@ncl.ac.uk

Project title

Optimising electrocatalytic eystem for multi-carbon products for CO₂ electrochemical reduction

Supervisors

• School of Engineering
• Dr Eileen Yu
• School of Natural and Environmental Sciences
• Dr Elizabeth Gibson

Project description

The technology is able to generate chemical feedstocks from CO₂ using excess renewable energy. This enables the conversion of electrical to chemical energy and offers a method of energy storage.

Current barriers to the realisation of electrochemical reduction of CO₂ are:

• high energy inefficiency
• low selectivity
• competition with H₂ evolution

For selectivity, desirable multi-carbon products such as ethylene and ethanol are harder to evolve. This is because of the high energy need of the C-C coupling reaction in comparison to C1 products.

My research will investigate the use of sequential catalysis. It will take the form of binary/ternary metal/metal oxide based catalysts. It will promote individual reaction intermediates. This will enable the overall reaction of CO₂ products to run at lower potentials. It will also favour specific mechanisms to improve selectivity.

We will also examine areas of optimisation for the design of the cell. The energy efficiency and selectivity of the products are due to the influence of all the cell’s parameters.

Interests

Running and swimming

Qualifications

BSc in Natural Sciences (Chemistry and Earth Sciences), Durham University