The practical implementation of electrochemical CO2 reduction technology is greatly challenged by significant CO2 crossover to the anode side, where the crossed-over CO2 is mixed with the O2, via interfacial carbonate formation in traditional CO2 electrolyzers. Here we report a porous solid electrolyte reactor strategy to efficiently recover these carbon losses. By creating a permeable and ion-conducting sulfonated polymer electrolyte layer between cathode and anode as a buffer layer, the crossover carbonate can combine with protons generated from anode to re-form CO2 gas for reuse without mixing with anode O2. Using silver nanowire catalyst for CO2 reduction to CO, we demonstrated up to 90% recovery of the crossover CO2 in an ultrahigh gas purity form (&gt; 99%), while delivering over 90% CO Faradaic efficiency under 200 mA/cm2 current. A high continuous CO2 conversion efficiency of over 90% was achieved by recycling the recovered CO2 to the CO2 input stream.

Recovering carbon losses and improving carbon utilization efficiencies in CO2 electrolysis

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