Eduardo Henrique Dias

A dual-function porous layer suppresses carbonate formation by restricting electrolyte convection, enabling alkaline CO ₂ electrolysis for 500 h with 80% C ₂ -product selectivity at 2.30 V and the lowest energy cost reported to date.

Electrochemical CO₂ reduction (ECR) offers a promising route for converting CO₂ emissions into valuable chemicals. To enhance economic viability, the development of efficient and low‐cost catalysts based on nonnoble metals is crucial. This study focuses on copper (Cu) nanoparticles highly dispersed on a carbon black (CB) support, synthesized via a solvothermal method that allows for precise control over particle size and loading. We demonstrate that tuning these properties is essential to steer the selectivity of CO₂ reduction toward carbon monoxide (CO). Notably, a low catalyst loading of only 0.159 mg/cm ² was sufficient to achieve high performance. The optimized catalyst delivered a CO partial current density of 66 mA/cm ² (total current density of 100 mA/cm ² with 66% Faradaic efficiency (FE) for CO) at a cell voltage of 3.2 V. Furthermore, our results highlight the critical role of the gas diffusion layer (GDL), showing that its composition significantly impacts catalyst activity. This underscores the necessity of engineering advanced GDLs with tailored conductivity, stability, and hydrophobicity to further boost the performance of Cu‐based catalysts in CO₂ electrolysis.

Converting methane into valuable chemicals is promising but hindered by inconsistent research standards. A meta-analysis is proposed to identify consensus and promote standardization.

The development of visible-light active photocatalysts is vital to harvest the solar irradiation and build efficient photoelectrochemical devices. Bismuth oxyhalide (BiOCl, BiOBr and BiOI) materials stand out due to their remarkable properties, e.g., the band gap energy can be tuned from 1.9 to 3.4 eV depends on the halide employed. However, the hydrothermal synthesis of this material class was not properly investigated and compared. Then, we evaluated the effect of the hydrothermal treatment in the BiOX’s structural, electronic, morphological and textural properties and the relationship with their photocatalytic performance. Methylene blue (MB) dye was used as probe for photocatalytic performance evaluation under ultraviolet (UV) and visible (Vis) radiation. BiOCl and BiOBr samples showed a good photoactivity under both UV and visible radiation, on other hand the BiOI samples was not active, likely due to the fast charge recombination. BiOCl and BiOBr samples exhibit a favorably interaction with MB dye, because their surfaces are negatively charged. BiOCl samples were able to promote around 40 and 80% of the MB dye degradation under visible and UV radiation, respectively. The samples were also employed as photoanode for O2 evolution, BiOI sample exhibited the best performance, due to the synergistic effect of photocatalysis and electrocatalysis.