High CO2 reduction activity on AlCrCoCuFeNi multi-principal element alloy nanoparticle electrocatalysts prepared by means of pulsed laser ablation
H. Pérez Blanes, Parisa Ghiasi, J. Sandkühler, Y. Yesilcicek, Simone Pentzien, Andrea Conradi, Carsten Prinz, Dominik Al‐Sabbagh, Andreas F. Thünemann, Özlem Özcan, Julia Witt
Abstract
Noble metal-free nanoparticles (NPs) based on multi-principal element alloys (MPEAs) were synthesized using a one-step pulsed laser ablation in liquids (PLALs) method for the electrochemical reduction of CO2. Laser ablation was performed in pure water or poly-(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDADMAC)-containing an aqueous solution of Al8Cr17Co17Cu8Fe17Ni33 MPEA targets. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) measurements combined with energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) mapping were used to characterize the structure and composition of the laser-generated MPEA nanoparticles (MPEA-NPs). These results confirmed the presence of a characteristic elemental distribution of a core-shell phase structure as the predominant NP species. The electrocatalytic performance of the laser-generated MPEA-NPs was characterized by linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) demonstrating an enhanced electrocatalytic CO2 activity for PDADMAC-stabilized NPs. The findings of these investigations indicate that MPEAs have great potential to replace conventional, expensive noble metal electrocatalysts.