Task 2 English for Academic

Name : Marselus Jeques Gros

NIM : 186090200111001

Synthesis and size control of Cu Nanoparticles and Their Effect in the Catalytic
Electroreduction of CO2
Introduction

CO2 emission has become a problem which could not be prevented as the effect of
burning fossil fuel. This process correlated with increased concentration of greenhouse gases
(GHS) and many problems including climate changes, acid rain, sea level rise, depletion of
ozone layer, and the global warming (Nejat et al., 2015), where it could not be predicted and
maybe potentially irreversible. Hence, this is to be the biggest challenge for human being
worldwide to remove the excessive CO2. A way which can be done to decrease CO2 emission
is the conversion of CO2 to be value-added fuels or chemical compound. Currently, the
scientific challenge is how to control the selectivity of reduction reaction of CO2 and how to
reduce potentially the formed of methane and ethylene. Many methods have been developed
to convert CO2. All of chemical methods, using the electrocatalytic becomes the better way
because this method can work on neutral pH, ambient pressure and temperature, and
catalyzed by non-nobel metal (Reske et al., 2014). Ponnurangam, et al. have used metal N-
polymer as the electrocatalyst (Ponnurangam et al., 2017) on electroreduction of CO2. Using
the Ag nanoparticles as catalyst onto the three dimension (3D) graphene-wrapped nitrogen-
doped carbon foam (Ag-G-NCF) (Zuo et al., 2016) and catalyst of Bi nanoparticles also
indicates the great efficiency toward electro reduction CO2 (Zhang et al., 2018). The other
advantages using the electrocatalyst are the low cost and high selectivity.

The size effect more have been reported on the catalytic reaction of gas phase metal
nanoparticles such as the decomposition reaction of alcohol (Subramanian et al., 2004), the
synthesis of ammonia (Jacobsen et al., 2000), the CO oxidation on Au nanoparticle (Bond,
2012), and the electrocatalytic oxidation of CO (Diao et al., 2007). Nanomaterials, as the
electrocatalyst, have attracted attention because of having several unique properties. Not only
Ag, but Cu nanoparticles are also interesting because it has the high thermal conductivity, the
strength, the activity of antibacterial and antiviral. Cu NPs have the reactivity toward CO2 on
closed carbon cycle with high density (alcohol and hydrocarbon) (Kondratenko et al., 2013).
This process supports the surplus of renewable energy which reduce the emission of CO
(Hofmann and Schellnhuber, 2010). The synthesis methods of Cu nanoparticles have been
developed including the vapor synthesis (Vitulli et al., 2002), exploding wire method
(Tarasov et al., 2002), vacuum vapor deposition (Liu and Bando, 2003), sonochemical
reduction (Kumar et al., 2001), biosynthesis (Ahmad et al., 2003), and laser irradiation (Yeh
et al., n.d.). However, using the toxic solution and harmful as the agent of reduction from the
methods have become the disadvantage because of affecting the quality of environment.
Green synthesis using the stabilizer agent which was biodegradable and eco-friendly was
promising but this method could not control the size and shape of Cu nanoparticles yet
(Suárez-Cerda et al., 2017).

Copper nanoparticles with the size range 2 – 15 nm have the higher of catalytic
activity than use Cu foil because more site was coordinated (Yeh et al., n.d.). The number of
site which less coordinated affects the product distribution (Liao et al., 2015). To enhance the
activity and selectivity of Cu nanoparticles as the catalyst, choosing of synthesis method to
produce the better size and shape from copper nanoparticle is interest to consider because this
is the success key of electroreduction CO2. The photoreduction method combined with clay
was interest because copper nanoparticles were obtained by simple step using the reagent
which is eco-friendly. Clay minerals with negatively charged ultra-thin layers and interlayer
cations simplify them to swell in water, exfoliated, and the layered. In this study, we assume
that the key to control the growth of Cu nanoparticles was on the adsorbent because they
could absorb effectively metal cations (Miyagawa et al., 2017).

In this work, the combination of photoreduction with the clay minerals on synthesis
Cu nanoparticles has controlled the diameter and dispersibility of Cu nanoparticles which
changed Cu2+ and saponite. The effect of nanoparticle size toward its activity and selectivity
on the electroreduction of CO2 also has been investigated. Copper nanoparticles were shown
the surprisingly selectivity and variation on range 2-15 nm. The activity of Cu nanoparticles
on CO2RR was calculated by density functional theory (DFT) (Reske et al., 2014) . This
study provided the new concept that the chemical bond controls the selectivity and
conversion of CO2.
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