Urea-Functionalized Silver Catalyst toward Efficient and Robust CO₂ Electrolysis with Relieved Reliance on Alkali Cations

We report a new strategy to improve the reactivity and durability of a membrane electrode assembly (MEA)-type electrolyzer for CO2 electrolysis to CO by modifying the silver catalyst layer with urea. Our experimental and theoretical results show that mixing urea with the silver catalyst can promote electrochemical CO2 reduction (CO2R),...

Assessing Silver Palladium Alloys for Electrochemical CO₂ Reduction in Membrane Electrode Assemblies

The field of electrochemical CO₂ reduction has been transitioning to industrially relevant scales by changing the architecture of the electrochemical cells and moving away from the traditional aqueous H-cells to membrane electrode assemblies (MEA). The reaction environments in MEAs vary drastically from that of aqueous H-cells,...

High Indirect Energy Consumption in AEM-Based CO₂Electrolyzers Demonstrates the Potential of Bipolar Membranes

Typically, anion exchange membranes (AEMs) are used in CO2 electrolyzers, but those suffer from unwanted CO2 crossover, implying (indirect) energy consumption for generating an excess of CO2 feed and purification of the KOH anolyte. As an alternative, bipolar membranes (BPMs) have been suggested, which mitigate the reactant loss by...

Cascade CO₂ electroreduction enables efficient carbonate-free production of ethylene

CO ₂ electroreduction offers a route to net-zero-emission production of C ₂H ₄—the most-produced organic compound. However, the formation of carbonate in this process causes loss of CO ₂ and a severe energy consumption/production penalty. Dividing the CO ₂-to-C ₂H ₄...