TY - JOUR
T1 - Spontaneous Solar Syngas Production from CO2 Driven by Energetically Favorable Wastewater Microbial Anodes
AU - Lu, Lu
AU - Li, Zhida
AU - Chen, Xi
AU - Wang, Huan
AU - Dai, Sheng
AU - Pan, Xiaoqing
AU - Ren, Zhiyong Jason
AU - Gu, Jing
N1 - Funding Information:
J.G. gratefully acknowledges Ich C. Tran at the UC Irvine Materials Research Institute for assisting with the XPS measurements and Margret Patrick to help us proofread the manuscript. The XPS work was performed at the UC Irvine Materials Research Institute (IMRI) using instrumentation funded in part by the National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation Program under grant no. CHE-1338173. J.G. also want to acknowledge SDSU startup funds, the SDSU University Grants Program, and NSF award CBET-1704992 to support this research. L.L. and Z.J.R. thank the support from NSF under award CBET-1834724 and support from the Andlinger Center Innovation Grant. L.L. also acknowledges the support from Shenzhen Science and Technology Program KQTD20190929172630447. L.L. Z.L. J.G. and Z.J.R. wrote the manuscript. L.L. J.G. and Z.J.R. conceived the experiments. Z.L. and J.G. conducted the nanowire Si interface and single-atom Ni synthesis and characterization. L.L. X.C. and H.W. designed and adjusted the circuit. S.D. and X.P conducted the STEM and EDX measurements. The authors declare no competing interests.
Funding Information:
J.G. gratefully acknowledges Ich C. Tran at the UC Irvine Materials Research Institute for assisting with the XPS measurements and Margret Patrick to help us proofread the manuscript. The XPS work was performed at the UC Irvine Materials Research Institute (IMRI) using instrumentation funded in part by the National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation Program under grant no. CHE-1338173 . J.G. also want to acknowledge SDSU startup funds, the SDSU University Grants Program, and NSF award CBET-1704992 to support this research. L.L. and Z.J.R. thank the support from NSF under award CBET-1834724 and support from the Andlinger Center Innovation Grant. L.L. also acknowledges the support from Shenzhen Science and Technology Program KQTD20190929172630447 .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2020/10/14
Y1 - 2020/10/14
N2 - The photoelectrochemical (PEC) reduction of CO2 to syngas is an attractive strategy for solar-to-fuel conversion. However, the high overpotential, inadequate selectivity, and high cost demand for alternative solutions. Here, we demonstrate a hybrid microbial photoelectrochemical (MPEC) system that contains a microbial anode capable of oxidizing waste organics in wastewater and reducing the oxidation potential by 1.1 V compared with abiotic water oxidation using a PEC anode. Moreover, the MPEC employs a power management circuit (PMC) to enable parallel low-energy-producing reactions operated in the same solution medium to conquer high-overpotential reactions. The nanowire silicon photocathode integrated with a selective single-atom nickel catalyst (Si NW/Ni SA) achieved up to ∼80% faradic efficiency for CO generation with a highly tunable CO:H2 generation ratio (0.1 to 6.8). When the bioanode was coupled with the Si NW/Ni SA, up to 1.1 mA cm−2 of spontaneous photocurrent density was obtained for high-rate syngas generation.
AB - The photoelectrochemical (PEC) reduction of CO2 to syngas is an attractive strategy for solar-to-fuel conversion. However, the high overpotential, inadequate selectivity, and high cost demand for alternative solutions. Here, we demonstrate a hybrid microbial photoelectrochemical (MPEC) system that contains a microbial anode capable of oxidizing waste organics in wastewater and reducing the oxidation potential by 1.1 V compared with abiotic water oxidation using a PEC anode. Moreover, the MPEC employs a power management circuit (PMC) to enable parallel low-energy-producing reactions operated in the same solution medium to conquer high-overpotential reactions. The nanowire silicon photocathode integrated with a selective single-atom nickel catalyst (Si NW/Ni SA) achieved up to ∼80% faradic efficiency for CO generation with a highly tunable CO:H2 generation ratio (0.1 to 6.8). When the bioanode was coupled with the Si NW/Ni SA, up to 1.1 mA cm−2 of spontaneous photocurrent density was obtained for high-rate syngas generation.
KW - microbial electrochemical oxidation
KW - microbial photoelectrochemical CO reduction
KW - self-sustaining system
KW - solar energy conversion
KW - syngas generation
KW - wastewater treatment
KW - water, energy, and carbon nexus
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85092143310&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85092143310&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.joule.2020.08.014
DO - 10.1016/j.joule.2020.08.014
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85092143310
VL - 4
SP - 2149
EP - 2161
JO - Joule
JF - Joule
SN - 2542-4351
IS - 10
ER -