Francesco Mattarozzi

Anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions are the major cause of climate change. To mitigate the effect of climate change, the share of renewable energy increased over the past decades. The electrocatalytic reduction of CO₂ is an interesting prospect to convert a greenhouse gas to valuable chemicals by using renewable electricity as the energy input. In this pioneering work, Hori showed that silver-based electrocatalysts were highly selective towards CO, which can be utilized with H₂ (syngas) to produce hydrocarbons [1] [2]. Therefore, many research groups focused their attention on the development of nanostructured silver catalysts supported on conductive substrates [3][4].

The goal of my PhD project is to study the electrocatalytic conversion of CO₂ into value-added chemicals, such as carbon monoxide, by synthesizing, characterizing and testing carbon supported silver nanostructures (figure 1). In particular, the aim is to fundamentally understand the effect of different silver morphologies, such as nanoparticles and nanowires, and carbon surface functional groups on the activity and selectivity towards CO₂ electroreduction products. In a broader prospective, the fundamental insight gained in this work will facilitate rational electrode design for CO₂ electrochemical reduction and syngas applications.

[1] Y. Hori et al., J. Phys. Chem. B., 101, 7075–7081 (1997).

[2] P. de Luna et al., Science, 364, 350-359 (2019).

[3] M. Ma et al., Angew. Chemie, 55, 9748-9752 (2016).

[4] N. J. Firet et al., Catal. Sci. Technol., 10, 5870-5885 (2020).

Link to Eye-openers presentation

C.V.

Dec 2018 – present	PhD candidate at the Materials Chemistry and Catalysis group, Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Utrecht University Under supervision of Prof. Dr P. E. (Petra) de Jongh and Dr. Peter Ngene.
	Project title: Electrochemical CO2 conversion: elucidating the role of supported Ag nanoparticles, support and electrolyte.
2016 – 2018	Master’s Degree in Industrial Chemistry, Università  degli Studi di Milano, Milan (Italy), Under supervision of Prof. Laura Prati
	Project title: Pd-based catalysts for selective hydrogenation reactions
2018	Five months internship at the Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis group, Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Utrecht University Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. P. E. (Petra) de Jongh Giorgio Totarella.
2013 – 2016	Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry, Università degli Studi di MIlano, Milan (Italy), under supervision of Prof. Claudia Letizia Maddalena Bianchi
2008 – 2013	Scientific high-school diploma, Liceo Scientifico Galileo Galilei, Erba (COMO)