HOLLOW CARBON MATERIALS FOR ELECTROCATALYTIC APPLICATIONS

NANOSCIENCE

Lab: LCC

Duration: NanoX master Internship (8 months part-time in-lab immersion)

Latest starting date: 05/10/2026

Localisation: Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination (LCC) campus at 205 Route de Narbonne, and ENSIACET at 4 Allée Emile Monso at INP campus

Supervisors:
Bidyut BIKASH SARMA bidyut-bikash.sarma@lcc-toulouse.fr
Nuria ROMERO nuria.romero@lcc-toulouse.fr

This research master's degree project could be followed by a PhD

Work package:
Electrochemical conversion of CO2 to multi-carbon products (C2+) has been reported on Cu-based catalysts, which yields ethylene as one of the major products.1 However, selectivity changes upon combining Cu with other metals2 or the use of CO instead of CO2 as feedstock.3 The current report is very limited to multi-carbon products of only upto C2 or C3 and beyond this has rarely been observed. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the origin of C-C coupling reaction during electrochemical CO2 valorization. In this project, metal incorporated in hollow carbon materials will be synthesized and used for the electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction. The synthesized materials will be characterized by X-ray diffraction, microscopy, X-ray absorption spectroscopy and various other techniques. The electrochemical tests will be carried out in batch or flow cell.

Figure 1. Electrochemical CO2/CO conversion to multi-carbon products with hollow carbon materials.

References:
References: 1. Y. Hori, I. Takahashi, O. Koga and N. Hoshi, J. Phys. Chem. B, 2002, 106, 15-17. 2. Y. C. Li, Z. Wang, T. Yuan, D.-H. Nam, M. Luo, J. Wicks, B. Chen, J. Li, F. Li, F. P. G. de Arquer, Y. Wang, C.-T. Dinh, O. Voznyy, D. Sinton and E. H. Sargent, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2019, 141, 8584-8591. 3. W. Luc, X. Fu, J. Shi, J.-J. Lv, M. Jouny, B. H. Ko, Y. Xu, Q. Tu, X. Hu, J. Wu, Q. Yue, Y. Liu, F. Jiao and Y. Kang, Nat. Catal., 2019, 2, 423-430.

Areas of expertise:
Electrochemical CO2/CO reduction, Hollow carbon materials, C-C coupling

Required skills for the internship:
Background in chemistry, knowledge in catalysis and electrochemistry will be advantageous