Jung (Timothy) Kim and Peng Zhu, third- and fourth-year doctoral students in chemical and biomolecular engineering (ChBE) at Rice University, respectively, have published a paper in Nature Catalysis outlining a strategy for improving the efficiency of electrochemical CO2 reduction technology.
“Recovering carbon losses in CO2 electrolysis using a solid electrolyte reactor” was published April 18 in Nature Catalysis.
“Efforts in this area have been hampered by significant CO2 crossover to the anode side, where the crossed-over CO2 is mixed with O2, via interfacial carbonate formation in the CO2 electrolyzers,” Kim said.
The researchers outline a porous solid electrolyte reactor strategy for recovering the carbon losses. By creating a permeable ion-conducting sulfonated polymer electrolyte between cathode and anode as a sort of buffer, the crossover carbonate can combine with protons generated from the anode to re-form CO2 gas. They can then be reused without mixing with the anodic O2.
“A high continuous CO2 conversion efficiency of over 90 percent was achieved by recycling the recovered CO2 to the CO2 input stream,” Kim said.
Kim and Zhu work in the lab of Haotian Wang, the William Marsh Rice Trustee Chair and assistant professor of ChBE, and of materials science and nanoengineering. Their research was accomplished with grants from NSF and the Welch Foundation.
Coauthors of the article are Wang; Feng-Yang Chen, third-year doctoral student in ChBE at Rice; Zhen-Yu Wu, postdoctoral researcher in ChBE at Rice; and David A. Cullen, senior R&D staff member in the Materials MicroAnalysis Group at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.