Research Projects

The increasing amount of atmospheric CO₂, resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels, is a major cause of global climate change. CO₂RR is a promising way to address this issue through converting CO₂ into value-added chemicals. The rational design of energy-efficient and selective electrocatalysts for CO₂RR is still a challenging task owing to other competitive reactions (e.g. HER) and the high energy barriers for the C–C coupling. Current research developments have made great advances in CO₂RR to C₁ products, including CO, formate, methane, and more recently, urea (a nitrogen-carrying C₁ compound), attracting increasing interest because of dual carbon-nitrogen fixation. Meanwhile, the efforts to promote the formation of C₂ products are predominantly based on the improvement of the C–C coupling step; however, obtaining high selectivity and efficiency is still challenging owing to the slow multi-electron/proton transfer kinetics and poor regulation of intermediate adsorption. A few recent works demonstrated that the kinetics of electrochemical reactions could be affected remarkably in the presence of an external magnetic field (ACS Energy Lett. 2021, 6, 2427−2433, Materials Today Physics, 2025, 55, 101751, etc). The magnetic field results in spin-polarization effects, alter the catalyst's electronic structure, and influences the adsorption/desorption of reaction intermediates. The current project focuses on the fabrication and application of iron-manganese (Fe–Mn)-based magnetocatalysts for CO₂RR under an external magnetic field. Iron and manganese are abundant in nature, inexpensive, and have useful magnetic and catalytic properties for the present application. It is postulated that the synergistic Fe–Mn active sites, together with the impact of spin polarization due to the external magnetic field, will facilitate CO₂-derived intermediate adsorption, C–C coupling for C₂ product formation, and C–N coupling for urea synthesis. I have experience with magnetoelectrochemicals enhancing ammonia synthesis (from nitrite reduction, Advanced Energy Materials, 2024, 14 (42), 2403295) by external magnetic fields (similar to CO₂RR). Key scientific goals include learning how magnetic-field-driven spin polarization influences intermediate binding and electron transfer in CO₂RR to a maximum of C₁ (urea) and C₂ product selectivity. Design operando instrumentations integrating electrochemistry and variable magnetic fields to study reaction processes in situ. This project may explore toward energy-driven, efficient, scalable, and sustainable CO₂ conversion set-ups for carbon-neutral fuel cycles and the green chemical industry. Furthermore, it paves the way for a new paradigm in catalyst design in which the magnetic field is an external handle to influence reaction selectivity and efficiency and may thus extend to other fields of electrosynthesis and energy conversion.