04/28/2021
By Sokny Long

The Francis College of Engineering, Department of Mechanical, invites you to attend a doctoral proposal defense by Jie Hu on “Suppressing CO Poising and Promoting Carbon Dioxide Electroreduction by Low-temperature Non-thermal Plasma Discharge.”

PhD Candidate Name: Jie Hu
Defense Date: Thursday, May 6, 2021
Time: 2 to 3 p.m. EST
Location: This will be a virtual defense via Zoom. Those interested in attending should contact Jie_hu@student.uml.edu and committee advisor, Fuqiang_liu@uml.edu, at least 24 hours prior to the defense to request access to the meeting.

Committee Chair (Advisor): Fuqiang Liu, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Committee Members:

  • Xinfang Jin, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Massachusetts Lowell
  • Ertan Agar, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Massachusetts Lowell
  • Kwok-Fan Chow, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Brief Abstract:

Electrochemical conversion of CO2 into more valuable products holds great promise but the catalysts developed to date are typically plagued by rapid deactivation due to strong adsorption of CO as a minor product. In this work, we conducted studies and analysis of electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) on Pd/C in the presence of in situ-generated H2O2 by low-temperature non-thermal plasma. Linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) and cyclic voltammetry (CV) studies show greatly improved CO2RR activity and the enhanced activity was found to directly correlate to the enlarged hydrogen desorption peak in the presence of plasma discharge. To elucidate the improved performance in CO2RR, multi-component physics-based simulation was conducted to study species transport and physicochemical kinetics at the plasma-electrolyte interface. Simulation results reveal that instead of solvated electrons, OH• and other short-lived species, the generated H2O2 is long-lived and may be responsible for the enhanced CO2RR performance. The oxidizing environment due to the presence of H2O2 generated by plasma could prevent the Pd surface from CO-poisoning. Further electrochemical studies showed that H2O2 electroreduction may alter the sorption and desorption of hydrogen on Pd, possibly creating the active PdHx phase for effective CO2RR. Future work will extend this discovery and investigate non-thermal plasma assisted electrochemical conversion of other systems.

All interested students and faculty members are invited to attend the online defense via remote access.