Direct electrochemical capture and release of carbon dioxide using an industrial organic pigment: quinacridone.
Limiting anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions constitutes a major issue faced by scientists today. Herein we report an efficient way of controlled capture and release of carbon dioxide using nature inspired, cheap, abundant and non-toxic, industrial pigment namely, quinacridone. An electrochemically reduced electrode consisting of a quinacridone thin film (ca. 100 nm thick) on an ITO support forms a quinacridone carbonate salt. The captured CO2 can be released by electrochemical oxidation. The amount of captured CO2 was quantified by FT-IR. The uptake value for electrochemical release process was 4.61 mmol g(-1). This value is among the highest reported uptake efficiencies for electrochemical CO2 capture. For comparison, the state-of-the-art aqueous amine industrial capture process has an uptake efficiency of ca. 8 mmol g(-1).
Linz Institute for Organic Solar Cells (LIOS), Physical Chemistry, Altenberger Strasse 69, 4040 Linz (Austria) http://www.lios.at. dogukan.apaydin@jku.at.
Dogukan Hazar
DH
Apaydin
Eric Daniel
ED
Głowacki
Engelbert
E
Portenkirchner
Niyazi Serdar
NS
Sariciftci
carbon dioxide capture; electrochemistry; organic pigments; vat dyes