Bipolar membrane electrolyzers enable high single-pass CO2 electroreduction to multicarbon products

Abstract

In alkaline and neutral MEA CO₂ electrolyzers, CO₂ rapidly converts to (bi)carbonate, imposing a significant energy penalty arising from separating CO₂ from the anode gas outlets. Here we report a CO₂ electrolyzer uses a bipolar membrane (BPM) to convert (bi)carbonate back to CO₂, preventing crossover; and that surpasses the single-pass utilization (SPU) limit (25% for multi-carbon products, C₂₊) suffered by previous neutral-media electrolyzers. We employ a stationary unbuffered catholyte layer between BPM and cathode to promote C₂₊ products while ensuring that (bi)carbonate is converted back, in situ, to CO₂ near the cathode. We develop a model that enables the design of the catholyte layer, finding that limiting the diffusion path length of reverted CO₂ to ~10 μm balances the CO₂ diffusion flux with the regeneration rate. We report a single-pass CO₂ utilization of 78%, which lowers the energy associated with downstream separation of CO₂ by 10× compared with past systems.

In the carbon dioxide (CO₂) to multicarbon electrolysis, the crossover CO₂ to the oxygen-rich anodic gas stream add a further energy-intensive chemical separation step. Here, the authors demonstrate a bipolar membrane-based electrolyzer design that eliminates the crossover CO2.