Polymer electrolyte membrane electrolysis

Electrode

Organic chemistry

Hydrogen

Carbon dioxide

Engineering

Faraday efficiency

Electrolysis

Physical chemistry

Syngas

Chemistry

Materials science

Programming language

Computer science

Electrolyte

Stack (abstract data type)

Chemical engineering

Electrochemistry

Oxygen

Partial pressure

ACS Energy Letters

Electrochemical reduction of CO2 is a value-added approach to both decrease the atmospheric emission of carbon dioxide and form valuable chemicals. We present a zero gap electrolyzer cell, which continuously converts gas phase CO2 to products without using any liquid catholyte. This is the first report of a multilayer CO2 electrolyzer stack for scaling up the electrolysis process. CO formation with partial current densities above 250 mA cm-2 were achieved routinely, which was further increased to 300 mA cm-2 (with ∼95% faradic efficiency) by pressurizing the CO2 inlet (up to 10 bar). Evenly distributing the CO2 gas among the layers, the electrolyzer operates identically to the sum of multiple single-layer electrolyzer cells. When passing the CO2 gas through the layers consecutively, the CO2 conversion efficiency increased. The electrolyzer simultaneously provides high partial current density, low cell voltage (-3.0 V), high conversion efficiency (up to 40%), and high selectivity for CO production.

Multilayer Electrolyzer Stack Converts Carbon Dioxide to Gas Products at High Pressure with High Efficiency