Paolo Lamagni: Solvothermal growth of HKUST-1/graphene composite films on glassy carbon electrodes

Paolo Lamagni, Birgitte Lodberg Pedersen, Xinming Hu, Steen Uttrup Pedersen, Kim Daasbjerg, Nina Lock Carbon Dioxide Activation Center (CADIAC), Dept. of Chemistry and iNANO, Aarhus University, Denmark With its BET surface area as high as ~1500 m^2 g^-1, copper-based HKUST-1 is one of the most investigated metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). This highly porous material has been studied for applications in electrocatalysis such as carbon dioxide reduction[1] and hydrogen evolution,[2] despite being an insulator itself. Therefore, the development of a general procedure for synthesising stable conductive MOF-based coatings for electrocatalysis was pursued in this research project. Graphene was mixed with the MOF precursors to form a conductive composite material, and the composite films were chemically attached to glassy carbon electrodes by means of diazonium electrografting.[3] The beneficial role of graphene as additive was confirmed both in the formation of good-quality, uniform films as well as in the improved conductive properties of the MOF-containing coatings. The electrochemical stability of the electrode films was also verified. [1] R. S. Kumar, S. S. Kumar and M. A. Kulandainathan, Electrochemistry Communications, 2012, 25, 70-73 [2] J. S. Qin, D. Y. Du, W. Guan, X. J. Bo, Y. F. Li, L. P. Guo, Z. M. Su, Y. Y. Wang, Y. Q. Lan and H. C. Zhou, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2015, 137, 7169-7177 [3] S. Balakrishnan, A. J. Downard and S. G. Telfer, Journal of Materials Chemistry, 2011, 21, 19207-19209 Paolo Lamagni is currently a Ph.D. student within the Carbon Dioxide Activation Center (CADIAC), based at the Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center (iNANO), Aarhus University, Denmark. He spent one year at Aarhus University as an exchange student, before starting his Ph.D. in 2015 under the supervision of Nina Lock and Kim Daasbjerg. He received both his B.Sc. degree (2013) and his M.Sc. degree (2015) in materials science from Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy. Paolo focuses his research activity on the synthesis of metal-organic framework-based materials for the reduction of carbon dioxide.