Van Daele Sam, Hintjens Lieven, Choukroun Daniel, Daems Nick, Hereijgers Jonas, Breugelmans Tom
Research Group Applied Electrochemistry & Catalysis (ELCAT), University of Antwerp, Faculty of Applied Engineering, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610 Wilrijk, Antwerp, Belgium.
Chem Catal. 2025 Jul 17;5(7):101353. doi: 10.1016/j.checat.2025.101353.
The electrochemical reduction of CO is a promising technology that holds the potential to convert waste CO into valuable products. High carbon capture and purification costs hamper economic feasibility and drive scientists to explore the viability of directly using flue gas exhaust streams. However, flue gas impurities, such as O, pose a great challenge because O is preferentially reduced over CO. Here, we show that careful design of the gas diffusion electrode (GDE) can significantly improve Faradaic efficiency. This work not only unravels how commonly used carbon-based GDEs facilitate O reduction but also succeeds in devising polymer-based alternatives that significantly improve the Faradaic efficiency (>40%) of CO reduction with 5% O-containing feed streams while showing excellent stability for >2 days. These results demonstrate that it is feasible to engineer suitable GDEs for CO reduction with impure feed streams.
CO的电化学还原是一项很有前景的技术，它有潜力将废气中的CO转化为有价值的产品。高碳捕获和净化成本阻碍了其经济可行性，并促使科学家探索直接使用烟道气排放流的可行性。然而，烟道气中的杂质，如O，构成了巨大挑战，因为O比CO更易被优先还原。在此，我们表明，精心设计气体扩散电极（GDE）可显著提高法拉第效率。这项工作不仅揭示了常用的碳基GDE如何促进O的还原，还成功设计出了基于聚合物的替代方案，这些方案在含5% O的进料流中能显著提高CO还原的法拉第效率（>40%），同时在>2天内表现出优异的稳定性。这些结果表明，设计适用于含杂质进料流的CO还原的合适GDE是可行的。
