It is of critical importance to curb CO2 emissions, and one of the lucrative methods to achieve this is through electrochemical reduction of CO2 (CO2RR) to fuels and value-added products. Current co-electrolysis infrastructure employs Oxygen Evolution Reaction (OER) as the anode reaction. However, this is a slow and energy-intensive reaction. In this work, we propose the oxidation of feedstock molecules as a more desirable alternative to OER in these CO2-reduction flow cells. One such feedstock molecule is Glycerol, which is a widely available and cheap by-product of soap and biodiesel production. Recently, our collaborators reported that a CO2 Reduction-Glycerol Oxidation co-electrolysis flow system reduces costs by over 50% as compared to a CO2RR-ORR flow system. Just like OER, the Glycerol Oxidation Reaction (GOR) is also a catalytic process, and it is essential to explore catalysts for these reactions. Herein, we showcase how our new method which is based on the Scanning Electrochemical Cell Microscopy (SECCM) technique. This technique can be employed to screen bi-metallic catalysts in a high-throughput fashion. We demonstrate the applicability of this technique to reliably screen for, and discern the performance of Au-Pt, Au-Pd, and Pt-Pd bimetallic catalyst array for GOR. Apart from probing standard solid substrates, it is also important for us to probe Gas Diffusion Electrodes (GDEs) to further explore these OER alternative reactions for high-throughput flow systems. GDEs are porous electrodes that enable the diffusion of gaseous species such as O2, CH4, C2H6 from one side to the other side where they interact with a catalyst layer and the electrolyte. Finally, we show preliminary results which indicate the stable and high performance of catalysts for GOR in a flow-cell setup.

High-throughput screening of catalysts for anode reaction in electrocatalytic CO2 co-conversion flow cells

Fall 2022 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch in mid-September.

ACS Fall 2022

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