Glycerol Oxidation Pairs with Carbon Monoxide Reduction for Low-Voltage Generation of C₂ and C₃ Product Streams
Abstract
Electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction to multicarbon products provides the storage of renewable energy in the form of chemical bonds, as well as a means to displace fossil sources of chemical feedstocks. However, the accompanying anodic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) reduces the energy efficiency of the process without providing a salable product. Replacing OER with alternative organic oxidation reactions (OORs) is an emerging strategy to reduce the full-cell potential and generate valuable products on both sides of the cell. We pursue carbon monoxide reduction that avoids carbonate formation and benefits from highly alkaline anode conditions favorable for OOR. This coelectrolysis strategy achieves a cathodic C₂₊ product stream (71% FE) and an anodic C₃ product stream (75% FE) at 180 mA cm⁻² with a full-cell potential of 1.34 V. The integrated system reduces the CO-to-C₂H₄ energy requirement by 55% (to ∼72 GJ/ton_(C₂H₄)), halving the projected energy cost of ethylene production from CO₂.
Additional Information
© 2021 American Chemical Society. Received: August 4, 2021; Published: September 14, 2021. The authors acknowledge Ontario Centre for the Characterization of Advanced Materials (OCCAM) for sample preparation and characterization facilities. The authors acknowledge financial support from the Ontario Research Foundation: Research Excellence Program; the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada; the CIFAR Bio-Inspired Solar Energy program; and the Joint Centre of Artificial Synthesis, a DOE Energy Innovation Hub, supported through the Office of Science of the US Department of Energy under Award No. DE-SC0004993. D.S. acknowledges the NSERC E.W.R Steacie Memorial Fellowship. A.T. acknowledges Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship H2020-MSCA-IF-2017 (793471). Infrastructure support from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Research Fund are also gratefully acknowledged. Author Contributions: D.S. and E.S. supervised the project. H.Y., D.S., and A.O. conceived the idea and designed the experiments. H.Y. carried out the experiments, collected and analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript. A.O. aided with electrochemical measurements and analytical characterizations. T.A. performed the COMSOL modeling. All authors discussed the results and contributed to manuscript editing. The authors declare no competing financial interest.Attached Files
Supplemental Material - nz1c01639_si_001.pdf
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Additional details
- Alternative title
- Glycerol Oxidation Pairs with Carbon Monoxide Reduction for Low-Voltage Generation of C2 and C3 Product Streams
- Eprint ID
- 110953
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20210917-215618208
- Ontario Research Foundation
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
- Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR)
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- DE-SC0004993
- Marie Curie Fellowship
- 793471
- Canada Foundation for Innovation
- Ontario Research Fund
- Created
-
2021-09-17Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-10-12Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- JCAP