Journal
JOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY A
Volume 10, Issue 19, Pages 10363-10372Publisher
ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY
DOI: 10.1039/d1ta10939a
Keywords
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Funding
- Carbon to X Project [2020M3H7A1098229, NRF-2020M3H7A1098266]
- National Research Foundation (NRF) - Ministry of Science and ICT, Republic of Korea [2020M3H4A1A02084590]
- National Research Foundation of Korea [2020M3H4A1A02084590, 4199990214002] Funding Source: Korea Institute of Science & Technology Information (KISTI), National Science & Technology Information Service (NTIS)
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In this study, a zero-gap membrane-electrode assembly (MEA) electrolyzer was designed to investigate the factors that determine the electrochemical CO2 reduction reactions (eCO(2)RRs) activity and multi-carbon production. The researchers discovered that under alkaline conditions, a simple synchronous activation step can create jagged CuO nanoparticles, which facilitate the production of C2+ chemicals in the zero-gap MEA electrolyzer. Furthermore, computational fluid dynamics analysis revealed that the mass transfer limitation of water and cathode kinetic overpotential play critical roles in determining the production of C2+ chemicals.
A zero-gap membrane-electrode assembly (MEA) electrolyzer is a promising design for electrochemical CO2 reduction reactions (eCO(2)RRs), where gaseous CO2 is directly fed without catholyte. The zero-gap junction between the catalyst and the membrane can have distinct chemical environments and mass transfer properties from the conventional H-type cell but is rarely studied. In this work, we designed an integrated experimental-simulation study in MEA to understand the zero-gap junction and factors to determine the eCO(2)RR activity to multi-carbon production. We developed a simple synchronous ionomer/catalyst activation step under alkaline conditions to form jagged CuO nanoparticles whose unique morphological evolution facilitates the C2+ chemical production for the zero-gap MEA electrolyzer. Moreover, under gas-fed and high-current density conditions, computational fluid dynamics suggests that the mass transfer limitation of water as a proton source across the catalyst-membrane layer and cathode kinetic overpotential are critical to determining C2+ chemical production in the range of several micrometers. From the chemical-physical understanding, we achieved a high partial current density of 336.5 mA cm(-2) and a faradaic efficiency of 67.3% towards C2+ chemicals.
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