Tom Breugelmans

University of Antwerp | UA · Research group ELCAT

Silver nanoparticles (NPs) were deposited on nickel, titanium and gold substrates using a potentiostatic double-pulse method. The influence of the support material on both the morphology and the electrocatalytic activity of Ag NPs for the reduction reaction of benzyl bromide was investigated and compared with previous research regarding silver NPs...

The potential-controlled electrochemical aldol condensation of acetone to diacetone alcohol in a standard batch electrolysis set-up was studied in this work. It is confirmed that the reaction proceeds at the cathode and that, contrary to what is mentioned in earlier literature, water in the electrolyte has a disadvantageous effect on the reaction....

In this work, the impact of the spacer features (interpillar distance and shape) on the membrane deflection, pressure difference across the membrane, and mass transfer was studied for a flat membrane microcontactor. It was demonstrated that decreasing the interpillar distance between the circular pillars reduced membrane deflection considerably. As...

The adsorption mechanism of 2-amino-5-mercapto-1,3,4-thiadiazole (AMTD) and 2-methyl-5-mercapto-1,3,4-thiadiazole (MMTD) was investigated by a combined electrochemical and surface analysis approach. The link with the adsorption kinetics was maintained during AC voltammetry as well as during potentiodynamic broadband multisine (ORP-EIS) measurements...

Miniaturization offers formidable opportunities to improve the performance of (bio-)analytical devices and microreactors. A crucial aspect, and for most applications also the largest hurdle, is the necessity to increase the specific surface area of at least part of the device. In the present review paper, some of the most widespread strategies to i...

While most lab-scale CO 2 reduction experiments are conducted at ambient temperatures (20-25°C), maintaining such low temperatures at an industrial scale will become challenging due to joule heating. In our study, we pushed the boundaries further than the already existing systems, opting for a higher temperature of 85°C for CO 2 reduction. This del...

Electrochemically converting CO 2 to valuable chemical products using renewable energy sources may present solutions to alter current increasing CO 2 emission trends. Currently, electrolyzer research is almost exclusively done with pure CO 2 streams that - in practice - would originate from carbon capture units that prevent CO 2 release to the atmo...

Carbon capture and utilization (CCU) are technologies sought to reduce the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. Industrial carbon capture is associated with energetic penalty, thus there is an opportunity to research alternatives. In this work, spectroelectrochemistry was used to analyze the electrochemical CO2 reduction (eCO2R) in CO2 saturated monoeth...

Fast technological progress in the electronics industry leads to an ever-growing generation of electronic waste or e-waste. Proper recycling of e-waste is, therefore, of great importance, not only for ecological reasons but also to valorize its material content. With gold being the most valuable metal in electronic waste, it is the main driver for...

Photoelectrochemical reactors harness solar energy to accelerate heterogeneous chemical reactions and reduce power consumption for a given reaction rate. The tandem photoelectrochemical cell design presented here employs a light penetrable TiO₂ photoanode||Cu₂O photocathode configuration that enables carbon dioxide turnover at limited cell voltages...

Among the electronic properties, the positions of the electronic band edges and the work function are essential parameters for determining the potential of a photocatalyst and its ability to function in a solar conversion system. A novel type of photocatalysts, called direct Z-schemes, possesses many advantages over conventional heterojunctions, wh...

As humanity is confronted by climate change, electrochemical CO2 reduction has become an important strategy for generating value-added chemicals whilst lowering carbon emissions. In this work, Cu2O nanoparticles with different...

Catholyte-free zero-gap reactor designs for CO 2 reduction show promise for industrial application, yet frequently suffer from stability issues due to salt crystallization. To address this challenge, efforts were made to...

Over the past decades, the electrochemical CO 2 reduction (eCO 2 R) into industrially valuable products has become one of the most promising technologies to valorize anthropogenic CO 2 emission , while also providing a means of energy storage for intermittent renewable sources. A wide variety of products , such as formic acid/formate (HCOOH/HCOO ⁻...

The electrochemical reduction of CO 2 (eCO2R) into valuable chemicals offers a great ecological solution to lower anthropogenic CO 2 in the atmosphere, since it can close the carbon cycle by utilizing renewable energy, resulting in a sustainable carbon recycling system. Consequently, it has gathered significant scientific interest over the past dec...

The interest in flow batteries as energy storage devices is growing due to the rising share of intermittent renewable energy sources. In this work, the performance of a vanadium flow battery is improved, without altering the electrochemical cell, by applying a pulsating flow. This novel flow battery flow regime aims to enhance performance by improv...

A facile, “one-pot”, chemical approach to synthesize gold-based nanoparticles finely dispersed on porous activated carbon (Norit) was demonstrated in this work. The pH of the synthesis bath played a critical role in determining the optimal gold-carbon interaction, which enabled a successful deposition of the gold nanoparticles onto the carbon matri...

Introduction There is an urgency for the development and establishment of technologies to deal with the effects of climate change and increasing temperature of the planet. ¹ The decrease in the CO 2 emissions is a possible path, and the capture of CO 2 from the atmosphere is another alternative to try and tackle the effects of climate change. ² The...

In this work an electrochemical tandem recycle reactor was developed for the selective electro-oxidation of ethylene into ethylene oxide with a concentrated product outflow, resulting in an more sustainable pathway towards EO as opposed to the partial oxidation process. The system consisted of (i) a cation exchange membrane equipped module operatin...

Although most state‐of‐the‐art Sn‐based electrocatalysts yield promising results in terms of selectivity and catalyst activity, their stability remains insufficient to date. Here, we demonstrate the successful application of the recently developed pomegranate‐structured SnO2 (Pom. SnO2) and SnO2@C (Pom. SnO2@C) nanocomposite electrocatalysts for th...

Complex geometries for electrodes are a great challenge in electrochemical applications. Slurry electrodes have been one example, which use complex flow distributors to improve the charge transfer between the current collector and the slurry particles. Here we use titanium‐based flow distributors produced by indirect 3D‐printing to improve further...

The popular genetic model organism Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) encodes 34 globins, whereby the few that are well-characterized show divergent properties besides the typical oxygen carrier function. Here, we present a biophysical characterization and expression analysis of C. elegans globin-3 (GLB-3). GLB-3 is predicted to exist in two isofo...

Integrating alkaline capture of CO2 from air with electrochemical conversion of the obtained (bi)carbonate solution is among the most promising strategies in carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies. Thus far, this approach has received little or no attention because of the challenging conversions of CO2 from bicarbonate solutions because...

To valorize waste and atmospheric CO2, carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies are currently receiving a lot of attention. Alkali base solutions have shown to be efficient capture solutions, and the electrochemical CO2 reduction (eCO2R) is a promising approach to convert CO2 using renewable energy. However, the capture and conversion have...

Synthetic organic electrochemistry, due to its advantages in terms of environmental impact and energy demand, has in the past years increasingly attracted researchers and companies. Consequently, a variety of (commercially available) electrochemical reactors have been developed. However, the focus remained on conducting fundamental electrochemical...

To date, research on CO2 reduction is almost exclusively performed with pure CO2 while exhaust streams often contain low concentrations of CO2. Direct usage of flue gases avoids the energy intensive CO2 capture step before utilization. This study compares the production of CO and formate on Ag and SnO2 catalysts respectively in order to find the mo...

The reaction mechanism of quinuclidine mediated C-H oxidation of unactivated C-H bonds has been elucidated. In-situ cathodically generated H2O2 was shown to diffuse to the anode where it is oxidized and participates in the ketonization reaction. Further oxidation of H2O2 to H2O, O2 and H⁺ leads to glassy carbon surface degradation. Oxidation of qui...

Integrating the alkaline capture of CO2 from the air with the electrochemical conversion of the obtained (bi)carbonate solution in one and the same system is among the most promising strategies in the field of Carbon Capture & Utilization (CCU) technologies. Thus far this approach has received little or no attention as a consequence of the challeng...

CO2 electrolyzers require gaseous CO2 or saturated CO2 solutions to achieve high energy efficiency (EE) in flow reactors. However, CO2 capture and delivery to electrolyzers are in most cases responsible for the inefficiency of the technology. Recently, bicarbonate zero-gap flow electrolyzers have proven to convert CO2 directly from bicarbonate solu...

In this work a reactor setup for the bromine mediated, electrochemical oxidation of ethylene oxide from ethylene was developed. This novel design featured a flow- through configuration for the ethylene feed to accommodate the in situ synthesis of the 2-bromoethanol intermediate, creating a low pH at the anolyte to selectively target the bromine evo...

Zero-gap electrolysers lead the race for industrial implementation in the electrosynthesis of carbon-based products from waste CO2. Due to their compact structure, these reactors have lower ohmic losses and attain higher energy efficiencies than the alternatives. However, most research conducted on these electrochemical cells dismisses key product-...

To valorize waste CO2, capturing and utilizing it to produce chemical building blocks is currently receiving a lot of attention. In this respect, amine and alkali base solutions have shown to be efficient CO2 capturing solutions and electrochemical CO2 conversion is a promising technology to convert CO2 and as such reduce greenhouse gas emissions....

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy is not considered a standard technique within the electrochemist's toolkit. It was used more frequently in electrocatalysis research from the 1960’s until the 1990’s to identify paramagnetic reaction intermediates and elucidate reaction mechanisms, but is less used nowadays. Since the 1990’s howeve...

Direct electrochemical reduction of CO2 to C2 products such as ethylene is more efficient in alkaline media, but it suffers from parasitic loss of reactants due to (bi)carbonate formation. A two-step process where the CO2 is first electrochemically reduced to CO and subsequently converted to desired C2 products has the potential to overcome the lim...

As part of a mitigation and adaptation approach to increasing carbon dioxide atmospheric concentrations, we report superior performance of various metal-nitrogen-doped carbon catalysts, synthesized using an easily up-scalable method, for the electrochemical reduction to carbon monoxide and/or formate at industrially relevant current densities up to...

Electrochemical CO2 reduction is a promising carbon capture and utilization technique, which is urgently required to prevent earth’s global warming. Extensive research on catalyst improvement, reactor engineering and electrode development has been performed in order to develop an industrially scalable system. However, despite the great process that...

Gaseous CO2 solutions are widely used for CO2 electrochemical conversion to various valuable products. However, capture, liberation and storage of gaseous CO2 prior to reduction is cumbersome and costly. CO2 electrocatalytic reduction from captured CO2 (in the form of concentrated bicarbonate solution) offers an option to optimize CO2 reduction pro...

A first test of the field capabilities of a novel in situ sampling technique combining active and passive sampling (APS) was conducted in the sea. The proof-of-concept device uses a pump to draw water into a diffusion cell where dissolved target substances are accumulated onto sorbents which are selective for different classes of contaminants (i.e....

In this paper electrodeposition is used to obtain Cu nanoparticles, as it allows good control over particle size and distribution. These Cu particles were deposited onto a gas diffusion electrode which increased the resulting surface area. Prior to deposition, the surface was pre-treated with NaOH, HNO3, MQ and TX100 to investigate the influence on...

Colloidal nanoparticles (NPs) including nanowires and nanosheets made by chemical methods involve many organic ligands. When the structure of NPs is investigated via transmission electron microscopy (TEM), the organic ligands act as a source for e-beam induced deposition and this causes substantial build-up of carbon layers in the investigated area...

Glucose electrooxidation to glucaric acid, a highly valuable platform chemical, has been conducted, for the first time, in two consecutive steps employing a bare gold electrode in a batch reactor. The first step, at low potential, enabled the effective formation of the intermediate, gluconic acid, promoted by the oxidation of the aldehyde group on...

A combined electrochemical and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) procedure for the study of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) intermediates generated at Pt nanoparticles (NPs) is validated in this work. Using spin-trap EPR complemented by electrochemical analysis, we show that we can detect and identify the free radicals that are produced during...

Bimetallic nanoparticles with tailored size and specific composition have shown promise as stable and selective catalysts for electrochemical reduction of CO2 (CO2R) in batch systems. Yet, limited effort was devoted to understand the effect of ligand coverage and postsynthesis treatments on CO2 reduction, especially under industrially applicable co...

Empirical electrocatalyst research generally consists of the synthesis and experimental characterization of catalysts and the analysis of electrolysis products by conventional analytical techniques. In‐situ electron paramagnetic resonance spectro‐electrochemistry provides an evidence‐based in‐depth understanding of the formed intermediates and the...

https://www.comsol.com/paper/beyond-the-limits-of-mass-transfer-how-pillar-electrodes-influence-electrochemic-95931 Electrochemistry is inherent a surface process, requiring the transport of reagents towards the electrode surface. In electrochemical reactors this typically results in mass transfer limitation problems, limiting the yield and effici...

A zero‐gap flow electrolyzer with a tin‐coated gas diffusion electrode as cathode was used to convert humidified gaseous CO 2 to formate. The influence of humidification, flow pattern and the type of membrane on the Faradaic efficiency (FE), product concentration, and salt precipitation were investigated. We demonstrated that water management in th...

DBD plasma reactors are commonly used in a static ‘one inlet – one outlet’ design that goes against reactor design principles for multi-component reactions, such as dry reforming of methane (DRM). Therefore, in this paper we have developed a novel reactor design, and investigated how the shape and size of the reaction zone, as well as gradual gas a...

The photoelectrochemical quantification of phenolic compounds such as hydroquinone (HQ) and 4-aminophenol (4-AP) is accomplished by integrating a photoelectrochemical cell into a flow injection analysis (FIA) setup. It is a well-known fact that during the electroanalysis of phenolic compounds, the electrode surface is susceptible to poisoning. Howe...

Nickel-containing N-doped carbons were synthesized for the electrochemical reduction of CO2 to CO, which is a promising approach to reduce the atmospheric CO2 levels and its negative impact on the environment. Unfortunately, poor performance (activity, selectivity and/or stability) is still a major hurdle for the economical implementation of this t...