Scalable and stable: researchers demonstrate largest CO2 reduction to date using CO2 electrolysis

Erlangen/Toronto, September 7, 2024 - Researchers at the University of Toronto and the Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nürnberg for Renewable Energy (HI ERN) have succeeded in improving the gas diffusion electrodes (GDEs) for CO₂ electrolysis through microstructure optimization. This is a pioneering step towards producing CO₂ -neutral fuels and chemicals using CO₂ electrolysis. Their work was recently published in the renowned journal "Joule".

Until now, fossil fuels have been used to produce fuels and essential chemicals such as plastics, fertilizers and pharmaceuticals, which release CO₂ when burned.

A promising way to produce CO₂ -neutral fuels and chemicals from carbon dioxide and renewable energy is the electrochemical CO₂ reduction reaction. In this process, carbon dioxide is converted into other chemical compounds. If these are burned, no additional emissions are produced if the CO₂ is first captured using CO₂ separation.

Despite considerable progress in CO₂ electrolysis, achieving sufficient operational stability for industrial applications remains a challenge: No stable production of multi-carbon products (C₂₊ products with at least two carbon atoms), such as ethene or ethanol, has been demonstrated for more than 200 hours. The most stable systems to date use low-conductivity substrates, but these are not scalable.

The difficulties of modern gas diffusion electrodes (GDE) for CO₂ electrolysis to C₂₊ products are salt precipitation, and the low surface tension of the liquid products produced in the GDE. These liquids begin to wet the microporous layer (MPL), which limits the stability of commercially available GDEs for CO₂ electrolysis.

Researchers at the University of Toronto and the Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nürnberg for Renewable Energy (HI ERN) have now succeeded in significantly improving the GDEs for CO₂ electrolysis through microstructure optimization:

The research team developed a stable and scalable electrode substrate that is resistant to liquid electrolyte penetration and operates for more than 400 hours without loss of performance. Using transport models from tomographic reconstruction, they developed large-area electrodes that operate with stable performance in an 800 cm² cell and an 8,000 cm² stack. This is the largest published demonstration of CO₂ electrolysis to C₂₊ products to date.

The results are groundbreaking for making chemicals and fuels more CO₂ -neutral in the future. The work was recently published in the renowned journal "Joule"(read full article).

Original publication

O’Brien et al., Scalability and stability in CO2 reduction via tomography-guided system design, Joule (2024)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2024.07.004

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Dr. Thomas Böhm

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Prof. Simon Thiele

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+49 9131-12538232

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