The massive quantities of fossil fuels used by our society have led to unprecedented atmospheric CO2 levels with widespread climate impacts. Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies are being developed to mitigate CO2 emission issues. As a critical component in CCUS, carbon utilization holds the key to generating revenues that can offset the capture cost. It enables the captured CO2 to be converted into valuable materials, such as concrete, building materials, and platform molecules for fuel and chemical productions. In our research lab, we are actively developing electrocatalytic conversion of carbon monoxide (CO) to enable the two-step CO2 electrolysis technologies. Currently, most of the research efforts focuses on the CO reduction catalyst development (e.g., nanostructuring, alloying, and surface modification) with the hope to tune the product selectivity. In contrast, very limited studies have been done to understand how other key components, such as anode electrocatalyst and ion-exchange membrane, influence the product stream (e.g., selectivity, energetic efficiency, concentration, and purity) in the electrochemical reactor. In this talk, we will discuss a new strategy to improve the acetate selectivity in electrochemical CO reduction by incorporating an anode electrocatalyst with a high ethanol partial oxidation activity and an anion-exchange membrane with a good ethanol permeability in the CO electrolyzer. We have successfully achieved a stable 100-hour continuous operation of the CO electrolyzer at a fixed current density of 200 mA cm-2 and a full cell potential of &lt;2.4 V, which produced an acetate product stream with a concentration up to 3.2 M and a purity of 97.8%.

Carbon dioxide electrolysis for sustainable chemical production

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.