The electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) to multi-carbon products, such as ethanol and ethylene, offers a route to produce fuels and chemicals from renewable energy. CO2RR technology is a promising solution to address the intermittency of renewable electricity and, ultimately, enable renewable fuels to contribute to displacing fossil fuels. In CO2RR to multi-carbon products, the electrocatalyst plays a vital role in determining the activity as well as the selectivity of the reaction. Strategies such as defect engineering, alloying, and nanostructuring have been applied to steer the reaction pathway to obtain chemical products at improved efficiencies. However, there is still much room to improve electrocatalysts to achieve high Faradaic efficiency toward multi-carbon products. The design of a well-engineered system for CO2 electrolysis is as important as that of the electrocatalyst. The transport of reactants, the local pH control at the catalyst interface, and the structural integrity of the substrate, determine the industrial relevance of the CO2 electrolysis device and system. In this talk, we will introduce the recent developments in electrocatalysts and electrolyzer design. Electrocatalyst design increasingly takes advantage of computational tools to identify the key descriptors that determine the CO2RR reaction pathway; and to design catalyst with enhanced performance towards valuable products such as ethylene, ethanol and propanol. For electrolyzer engineering, we focused on maximizing the energy efficiency of devices toward valuable products by optimizing the reaction conditions, such as pH, pressure, and cell components. We report current densities now approaching the A/cm2 range and 100 hours of continuous CO2RR operation.

Rationally guided design of electrocatalysts and systems for CO2-to-fuels using renewable electricity

2019 Fall National Meeting

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