Advances and challenges in scalable carbon dioxide electrolysis

Abstract

The electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) is an effective way of utilizing carbon and can be economically profitable by converting captured CO2 into valuable products. In the last decade, significant research efforts have been dedicated to CO2RR technology and significant breakthroughs in materials design, mechanistic understanding and device applications have been made. Although laboratory-level CO2RR performance has shown its potential prospects, scalable CO2 electrolysis is still far from market ready. The keys for industrialization are to cut running costs, increase the CO2 conversion rate and obtain high industrial value reaction products. Here, we start by systematically introducing the current research progress made in CO2 electrolyzer development in terms of the device structure and reaction environments. Then, the current problems in the scale-up process and corresponding solutions are summarized. Some improvement strategies and development directions are proposed, for example, cathodic salting, the use of ion exchange membranes and flow channel design. This perspective illustrates the importance of practical electrolyzers, which will guide the design of scalable CO2 electrolyzers and accelerate the commercialization process of CO2RR technology.