Surface electrochemistry of CO2 reduction and CO oxidation on Sm-doped CeO(2-x): coupling between Ce(3+) and carbonate adsorbates.

The efficient electro-reduction of CO2 to chemical fuels and the electro-oxidation of hydrocarbons for generating electricity are critical toward a carbon-neutral energy cycle. The simplest reactions involving carbon species in solid-oxide fuel cells and electrolyzer cells are CO oxidation and CO2 reduction, respectively. In catalyzing these reactions, doped ceria exhibits a mixed valence of Ce(3+) and Ce(4+), and has been employed as a highly active and coking-resistant electrode. Here we report an operando investigation of the surface reaction mechanism on a ceria-based electrochemical cell using ambient pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. We show that the reaction proceeds via a stable carbonate intermediate, the coverage of which is coupled to the surface Ce(3+) concentration. Under CO oxidation polarization, both the carbonate and surface Ce(3+) concentration decrease with overpotential. Under CO2 reduction polarization, on the other hand, the carbonate coverage saturates whereas the surface Ce(3+) concentration increases with overpotential. The evolution of these reaction intermediates was analyzed using a simplified two-electron reaction scheme. We propose that the strong adsorbate-adsorbate interaction explains the coverage-dependent reaction mechanism. These new insights into the surface electrochemistry of ceria shed light on the optimization strategies for better fuel cell electrocatalysts.

Redox activity of surface oxygen anions in oxygen-deficient perovskite oxides during electrochemical reactions.

Surface redox-active centres in transition-metal oxides play a key role in determining the efficacy of electrocatalysts. The extreme sensitivity of surface redox states to temperatures, to gas pressures and to electrochemical reaction conditions renders them difficult to investigate by conventional surface-science techniques. Here we report the direct observation of surface redox processes by surface-sensitive, operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy using thin-film iron and cobalt perovskite oxides as model electrodes for elevated-temperature oxygen incorporation and evolution reactions. In contrast to the conventional view that the transition metal cations are the dominant redox-active centres, we find that the oxygen anions near the surface are a significant redox partner to molecular oxygen due to the strong hybridization between oxygen 2p and transition metal 3d electronic states. We propose that a narrow electronic state of significant oxygen 2p character near the Fermi level exchanges electrons with the oxygen adsorbates. This result highlights the importance of surface anion-redox chemistry in oxygen-deficient transition-metal oxides.