Mitigating carbonate formation in CO2 electrolysis
Yu Yang,
Yaohui Shi,
Hai Yu,
Jie Zeng,
Kangkang Li,
Fengwang Li
Affiliations
Yu Yang
School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and The University of Sydney Nano Institute, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Yaohui Shi
Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, CAS Key Laboratory of Strongly-Coupled Quantum Matter Physics, Key Laboratory of Surface and Interface Chemistry and Energy Catalysis of Anhui Higher Education Institutes, Department of Chemical Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, PR China
Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, CAS Key Laboratory of Strongly-Coupled Quantum Matter Physics, Key Laboratory of Surface and Interface Chemistry and Energy Catalysis of Anhui Higher Education Institutes, Department of Chemical Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, PR China
Kangkang Li
Department of Energy and Resources Engineering, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, PR China; Corresponding authors.
Fengwang Li
School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and The University of Sydney Nano Institute, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia; Corresponding authors.
Electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) that could utilise massive CO2 from industrial flue gas and the atmosphere provides a promising method to convert CO2 to value-added fuels and feedstocks powered by renewable electricity. Although significant progress has been made recently, carbonate formation in alkaline and neutral electrolytes reduces the longevity of the device and induces extra cost in CO2 regeneration, thus limiting the application of CO2RR. In this review, we summarise recent efforts in overcoming this issue and thus achieving high single pass CO2 utilization: CO2RR in acid media, tandem CO2RR with CORR, and electrolysis of CO2 capture media. We discuss detailedly the advantages and challenges of each system by comparing their performances with alkaline/neutral CO2RR. This in return supports our perspective on the further improvement in the technical and economic viability of CO2RR process.
