Carbon Monoxide Gas Diffusion Electrolysis that Produces Concentrated C2 Products with High Single-Pass Conversion

By Donald S. Ripatti, Thomas R. Veltman, Matthew W. Kanan. Joule, 2019

260 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Summary Electrochemical CO conversion is critical for the development of alternative fuel and chemical syntheses. To be efficient, electrosynthesis must make concentrated product streams at high rates with modest potentials, but the combination of these features has not been established for CO or the related CO2 electrolysis. Here we investigate CO electrolysis with gas diffusion electrodes (GDEs) supplied by interdigitated flow fields in electrochemical cells with different ion transport properties. By optimizing gas and ion transport, we show that it is possible to simultaneously achieve high current density, high selectivity, and high single-pass conversion at moderate cell potentials. Using a cell with the GDE directly contacting a Nafion membrane, we demonstrate >100 mA cm−2 CO reduction to C2 products and direct production of 1.1 M acetate at a cell potential of 2.4 V over 24 hr. Our results reveal critical design features for maximizing the efficiency of C2 electrosynthesis.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/546ab19957ad59bcf641f89c27557803fcbb684c

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

1. C. Dinh
2. Mingchuan Luo
3. Edward H. Sargent
4. Drew C. Higgins
5. T. Jaramillo
6. David Sinton
7. K. Johnston

In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

1. Edward H. Sargent
2. C. Dinh
3. C. Hahn
4. Mingchuan Luo
5. Drew C. Higgins
6. T. Jaramillo
7. Phil de Luna
8. David Sinton

Citations in the corpus

• What would it take for renewably powered electrosynthesis to displace petrochemical processes? (2019, background): “Recent work on optimizing single-pass conversion at high selectivity (99) also shows promise in reducing separation costs downstream.”
• Continuous Carbon Dioxide Electroreduction to Concentrated Multi-carbon Products Using a Membrane Electrode Assembly (2019, background): “8 wt %) from carbonmonoxide (CO) and CO2 feedstocks, respectively.(11,12)”
• Cascade CO2 electroreduction enables efficient carbonate-free production of ethylene (2021, background): “However, due to the formation of carbonate during CO2RR (Figure S1), concerns regarding the consequent penalty in energy consumption and production cost have risen.(8,9)”