Electrochemical reactors, such as water electrolyzers, CO₂ electrolyzers, fuel cells, and flow batteries, will be essential in electrifying industry as part of the global transition towards a defossilized and sustainable economy. These technologies require further optimization to enhance efficiency and reduce costs for widespread adoption. Hydrodynamics and mass transfer at electrode–electrolyte interfaces significantly affect electrochemical conversion reactions by influencing the reactant availability and pH in the local reaction environment. 3D electrodes, such as flow-through foams and suspension electrodes, hold a great advantage over 2D electrodes as they moderate pH changes and reactant depletion by spreading the current over a larger electrode area and electrolyte volume. We study the diffusion boundary layer in operando around a single mm-sized particle, representing an element of a 3D electrode. We visualize the local and transient pH with Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Microscopy (FLIM) during H₂O reduction at various current densities and electrolyte flow velocities at a resolution down to 9 μm and 2 Hz. In addition, we apply an intermittent current to investigate how long the capacitive electric double layer of a suspension electrode particle can maintain an electrochemical reaction during their time of non-contact with a current collector, mimicking applications with Faradaic charge transfer (i.e. flow batteries, microbial fuel cells, capacitance-based electrolyzers). We demonstrate that the diffusion boundary layer is not symmetrical, but depend on the direction of the electric field, the current density and the flow conditions. The substantial pH gradients and boundary layer formation at the scale of hundreds of micrometers underline the importance of controlling flow in or around electrodes, making 3D electrodes an important asset for creating suitable reaction conditions in mass transport-limited electrochemical conversions.

Low-temperature carbon dioxide electrolysis (CO₂E) provides a one-step means of converting CO₂ into carbon-based fuels using electrical inputs at temperatures below 100 °C. Over the past decade, an abundance of work has been carried out at ambient temperature, and high CO₂E rates and product selectivities have been achieved. With scaling of CO₂E technologies underway, greater discourse surrounding heat management and the viable operating temperatures of larger systems is important. In this Perspective we argue that, owing to the energy inefficiency of electrolysers, heat generation in CO₂E stacks will favour operating temperatures of between 40 and 70 °C, far from the ambient temperatures used so far. Such elevated temperatures put further pressure on catalyst and membrane stability and on the stack design. On the other hand, elevated temperatures could alleviate challenges in salt precipitation, water management and high cell voltages, aiding the technology. We reflect on these aspects and discuss the opportunities for waste heat valorization to increase the economic feasibility of the process.

The decoupled power and energy output of a redox flow battery (RFB) offers a key advantage in long-duration energy storage, crucial for a successful energy transition. Iodide/iodine and hydrogen/water, owing to their fast reaction kinetics, benign nature, and high solubility, provide promising battery chemistry. However, H₂-I₂ RFBs suffer from low open circuit potentials, iodine crossover, and their multiphase nature. We demonstrate a H₂-I₂ operation with a combined neutral-pH catholyte (I₃^-/I^-) and an alkaline anolyte (KOH), producing an open circuit cell voltage of 1.28 V. Additionally, we incorporate a pressure-balanced gas diffusion electrode (GDE) to mitigate mass transport limitations at the anode. These improvements result in a maximum power density of 230 W/m² when allowing a mild breakthrough of H₂ through the GDE. While minimal crossover occurs, side reactions of permeating active species were found reversible, enabling long-term operation. Future work should address the stability of the GDE and optimization of the electrolyte thickness and concentration to fully leverage the potential unlocked by balancing the pressure and pH in the H₂-I₂ RFB.

CO2 electrolysis allows the sustainable production of carbon-based fuels and chemicals. However, state-of-the-art CO2 electrolysers employing anion exchange membranes (AEMs) suffer from (bi)carbonate crossover, causing low CO2 utilization and limiting anode choices to those based on precious metals. Here we argue that bipolar membranes (BPMs) could become the primary option for intrinsically stable and efficient CO2 electrolysis without the use of scarce metals. Although both reverse- and forward-bias BPMs can inhibit CO2 crossover, forward-bias BPMs fail to solve the rare-earth metals requirement at the anode. Unfortunately, reverse-bias BPM systems presently exhibit comparatively lower Faradaic efficiencies and higher cell voltages than AEM-based systems. We argue that these performance challenges can be overcome by focusing research on optimizing the catalyst, reaction microenvironment and alkali cation availability. Furthermore, BPMs can be improved by using thinner layers and a suitable water dissociation catalyst, thus alleviating core remaining challenges in CO2 electrolysis to bring this technology to the industrial scale.

Electrochemical CO2 reduction offers a promising method of converting renewable electrical energy into valuable hydrocarbon compounds vital to hard-to-abate sectors. Significant progress has been made on the lab scale, but scale-up demonstrations remain limited. Because of the low energy efficiency of CO2 reduction, we suspect that significant thermal gradients may develop in industrially relevant dimensions. We describe here a model prediction for non-isothermal behavior beyond the typical 1D models to illustrate the severity of heating at larger scales. We develop a 2D model for two membrane electrode assembly (MEA) CO2 electrolyzers; a liquid anolyte fed MEA (exchange MEA) and a fully gas fed configuration (full MEA). Our results indicate that full MEA configurations exhibit very poor electrochemical performance at moderately larger scales due to non-isothermal effects. Heating results in severe membrane dehydration, which induces large Ohmic losses in the membrane, resulting in a sharp decline in the current density along the flow direction. In contrast, the anolyte employed in the exchange MEA configuration is effective in preventing large thermal gradients. Membrane dehydration is not a problem for the exchange MEA configuration, leading to a nearly constant current density over the entire length of the modeled domain, and indicating that exchange MEA configurations are well suited for scale-up. Our results additionally indicate that a balance between faster kinetics, higher ionic conductivity, smaller pH gradients and lower CO2 solubility causes an optimum operating temperature between 60 and 70 °C.

CO2 conversion is an important part of the transition towards clean fuels and chemicals. However, low solubility of CO2 in water and its slow diffusion cause mass transfer limitations in aqueous electrochemical CO2 reduction. This significantly limits the partial current densities towards any desired CO2-reduction product. We propose using flowable suspension electrodes to spread the current over a larger volume and alleviate mass transfer limitations, which could allow high partial current densities for CO2 conversion even in aqueous environments. To identify the requirements for a well-performing suspension electrode, we use a transmission line model to simulate the local electric and ionic current distributions throughout a channel and show that the electrocatalysis is best distributed over the catholyte volume when the electric, ionic and charge transfer resistances are balanced. In addition, we used electrochemical impedance spectroscopy to measure the different resistance contributions and correlated the results with rheology measurements to show that particle size and shape impact the ever-present trade-off between conductivity and flowability. We combine the modelling and experimental results to evaluate which carbon type is most suitable for use in a suspension electrode for CO2 reduction, and predict a good reaction distribution throughout activated carbon and carbon black suspensions. Finally, we tested several suspension electrodes in a CO2 electrolyzer. Even though mass transport limitations should be reduced, the CO partial current densities are capped at 2.8 mA cm−2, which may be due to engineering limitations. We conclude that using suspension electrodes is challenging for sensitive reactions like CO2 reduction, and may be more suitable for use in other electrochemical conversion reactions suffering from mass transfer limitations that are less affected by competing reactions and contaminations.

Electrochemical oxygen reduction is a promising and sustainable alternative to the current industrial production method for hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂), which is a green oxidant in many (emerging) applications in the chemical industry, water treatment, and fuel cells. Low solubility of O₂ in water causes severe mass transfer limitations and loss of H₂O₂ selectivity at industrially relevant current densities, complicating the development of practical-scale electrochemical H₂O₂ synthesis systems. We tested a flow-by and flow-through configuration and suspension electrodes in an electrochemical flow cell to investigate the influence of electrode configuration and flow conditions on mass transfer and H₂O₂ production. We monitored the H₂O₂ production using Cu-tmpa (tmpa = tris(2-pyridylmethyl)amine) as a homogeneous copper-based catalyst in a pH-neutral phosphate buffer during 1 h of catalysis and estimated the limiting current density from CV scans. We achieve the highest H₂O₂ production and a 15-20 times higher geometrical limiting current density in the flow-through configuration compared to the flow-by configuration due to the increased surface area and foam structure that improved mass transfer. The activated carbon (AC) material in suspension electrodes, which have an even larger surface area, decomposes all produced H₂O₂ and proves unsuitable for H₂O₂ synthesis. Although the mass transfer limitations seem to be alleviated on the microscale in the flow-through system, the high O₂ consumption and H₂O₂ production cause challenges in maintaining the initially reached current density and Faradaic efficiency (FE). The decreasing ratio between the concentrations of the O₂ and H₂O₂ in the bulk electrolyte will likely pose a challenge when proceeding to larger systems with longer electrodes. Tuning the reactor design and operating conditions will be essential in maximizing the FE and current density.

Membrane technology has attracted great industrial interest in carbon capture and separation owing to the merits of energy-efficiency, environmental friendliness and low capital investment. Conventional polymeric membranes for CO₂ separation suffer from the trade-off between permeability and selectivity. Introducing porous fillers in polymers is one approach to enhance membrane separation performance. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), with ordered porous structure and diverse chemical functionalities, are promising fillers to prepare mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) for CO₂ separation. However, the main issue of MOF based MMMs in industry is their stability and processability. This review analyses recent work on stable and scalable MOF based MMMs for CO₂ separation. The typical stable MOFs, MOF-based MMMs and the scalable MOF synthesis are summarized. A large number of MOF-based MMM suffer from instability upon exposure to contaminants. For that reason, we also discuss the use of covalent organic frameworks (COFs) as an alternative to prepare MMMs for CO₂ separation, considering their excellent stability and good compatibility with polymers. Finally, a brief conclusion and current challenges on obtaining scalable and stable MMMs are outlined. This review may provide some guidance for designing high performance MMMs for industrial CO₂ capture and separation to help achieving carbon neutrality.

Nanofluidic membranes (NFMs) are gaining prominence as alternative ion-exchange membranes, because of their distinct selectivity mechanism, which does not rely on functional groups on a polymeric backbone but rather on charged nanopores that allow straight ion-conductive pathways for efficient ion transport. We measured the conductivity of commercial anodized aluminum oxide membranes with different pore sizes under different current densities and electrolyte concentrations. We also simulated a nanopore channel with charged walls between two electrolyte reservoirs. Our findings indicate that electrolyte concentration is the main parameter that determines NFM conductivity, with a linear dependence at least up to 1 M. Our study shows that the optimal pore length is between 0.5 and 5 μm considering the trade-off between selectivity and conductance. On the other hand, the conductance is not sensitive to the pore diameter. Conical nanopores are a way to increase conductance, but according to our results, this increase comes at the expense of selectivity. Our findings suggest that NFMs can outperform polymeric ion-exchange membranes in certain electrochemical applications, such as reverse electrodialysis, but not in applications that use low electrolyte concentrations on both sides of the membrane.

Dense polymer membranes enable a diverse range of separations and clean energy technologies, including gas separation, water treatment, and renewable fuel production or conversion. The transport of small molecular and ionic solutes in the majority of these membranes is described by the same solution-diffusion mechanism, yet a comparison of membrane separation performance across applications is rare. A better understanding of how structure-property relationships and driving forces compare among applications would drive innovation in membrane development by identifying opportunities for cross-disciplinary knowledge transfer. Here, we aim to inspire such cross-pollination by evaluating the selectivity and electrochemical driving forces for 29 separations across nine different applications using a common framework grounded in the physicochemical characteristics of the permeating and rejected solutes. Our analysis shows that highly selective membranes usually exhibit high solute rejection, rather than fast solute permeation, and often exploit contrasts in the size and charge of solutes rather than a nonelectrostatic chemical property, polarizability. We also highlight the power of selective driving forces (e.g., the fact that applied electric potential acts on charged solutes but not on neutral ones) to enable effective separation processes, even when the membrane itself has poor selectivity. We conclude by proposing several research opportunities that are likely to impact multiple areas of membrane science. The high-level perspective of membrane separation across fields presented herein aims to promote cross-pollination and innovation by enabling comparisons of solute transport and driving forces among membrane separation applications.

To make green hydrogen more economically attractive, the energy losses in alkaline electrolysis need to be minimized while operating at high current densities (1 A cm⁻²). At these current densities the ohmic resistance and gas bubbles effects contribute largely to the energy losses. To mitigate the gas bubbles losses, we demonstrate, for the first time, a pressure swing to remove gas bubbles in a zero-gap alkaline water electrolyzer. The pressure swing leverages the ideal gas law to increase the volume of gas in the system periodically, for a short duration (<2 s). This temporal volume increase effectively removes bubbles from the electrolyzer. We show that pressure swing can be used to measure the effect of bubbles on the ohmic resistance (R_Bubbles). Our results reveal that foam electrodes have a significantly larger R_Bubbles than perforated plate electrodes (1.8 Ω cm² vs 0.3 Ω cm²). The time-averaged cell voltage reduces by 170 mV when applying pressure swings to an electrolyzer operating at 200 mA cm⁻² in 1 M KOH with foam electrodes. The bubble resistance further depends on the electrolyte conductivity (inversely proportional) and is only moderately affected by operating pressure (25 % lower when increasing pressure amplitude from 1–2 to 1–5 bar). By implementing these findings in a model, we estimate that the pressure swing could reduce the cell voltage by ∼0.1 V for an electrolyzer operating at industrial conditions (6 M KOH, 80 °C, 1 A cm⁻²) for foam electrodes. For perforated plate electrodes, however, the reduced cell voltage is lower and does not outweigh the additional compression energy.

Electrochemical CO₂ capture is promising for closing the carbon cycle but needs technological advances. In a recent issue of Nature Energy, a novel chemistry for electrochemical CO₂ capture is presented, demonstrating low energy consumption and high purity with virtually no degradation. This finally allows competition with amine-based capture technology.

Spatiotemporal pH imaging using fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) is an excellent technique for investigating dynamic (electro)chemical processes. However, probes that are responsive at high pH values are not available. Here, we describe the development and application of dedicated pH probes based on the 1-methyl-7-amino-quinolinium fluorophore. The high fluorescence lifetime and quantum yield, the high (photo)stability, and the inherent water solubility make the quinolinium fluorophore well suited for the development of FLIM probes. Due to the flexible fluorophore-spacer-receptor architecture, probe lifetimes are tunable in the pH range between 5.5 and 11. An additional fluorescence lifetime response, at tunable pH values between 11 and 13, is achieved by deprotonation of the aromatic amine at the quinolinium core. Probe lifetimes are hardly affected by temperature and the presence of most inorganic ions, thus making FLIM imaging highly reliable and convenient. At 0.1 mM probe concentrations, imaging at rates of 3 images per second, at a resolution of 4 μm, while measuring pH values up to 12 is achieved. This enables the pH imaging of dynamic electrochemical processes involving chemical reactions and mass transport.

Large amounts of carbon monoxide are produced by industrial processes such as biomass gasification and steel manufacturing. The CO present in vent streams is often burnt, this produces a large amount of CO₂, e.g., oxidation of CO from metallurgic flue gasses is solely responsible for 2.7% of manmade CO₂ emissions. The separation of N₂ from CO due to their very similar physical properties is very challenging, meaning that numerous energy-intensive steps are required for CO separation, making the CO separation from many process streams uneconomical in spite of CO being a valuable building block in the production of major chemicals through C1 chemistry and the production of linear hydrocarbons by the Fischer-Tropsch process. The development of suitable processes for the separation of carbon monoxide has both industrial and environmental significance. Especially since CO is a main product of electrocatalytic CO₂ reduction, an emerging sustainable technology to enable carbon neutrality. This technology also requires an energy-efficient separation process. Therefore, there is a great need to develop energy efficient CO separation processes adequate for these different process streams. As such the urgency of separating carbon monoxide is gaining greater recognition, with research in the field becoming more and more crucial. This review details the principles on which CO separation is based and provides an overview of currently commercialised CO separation processes and their limitations. Adsorption is identified as a technology with the potential for CO separation with high selectivity and energy efficiency. We review the research efforts, mainly seen in the last decades, in developing new materials for CO separation via ad/bsorption and membrane technology. We have geared our review to both traditional CO sources and emerging CO sources, including CO production from CO₂ conversion. To that end, a variety of emerging processes as potential CO₂-to-CO technologies are discussed and, specifically, the need for CO capture after electrochemical CO₂ reduction is highlighted, which is still underexposed in the available literature. Altogether, we aim to highlight the knowledge gaps that could guide future research to improve CO separation performance for industrial implementation.