10th U6+ Consortium of African Universities International Conference

The deposition of copper oxide nanostructures on the anatase phase of a (101)-TiO2 surface to increase the reduction of CO2 has gained significant interest and has great potential for sustainable energy economy. In the present work, we studied a heterogeneous surface for the reduction of CO2, which can produce various organic compounds such as formic acid, formaldehyde, methanol, ethanol, and methane. The density functional theory calculations were employed to study the formation of formaldehyde and formic acid from CO2 via hydrogenation by H2 on a Cu oxide/TiO2 catalyst. The preliminary findings show that molecular CO2 and HCOOH prefer to adsorb on Ti5C that forms an interface with Cu2O oxide with adsorption energies of 0.13 eV and 0.1 eV, respectively. The copper oxide modified titania is a unique catalyst for charge separation and conversion of CO2 into important organic compounds. This work highlights the potential of these systems as improved electrocatalyst over pure transition metal oxides for CO2 reduction.