Cascade CO2 electroreduction enables efficient carbonate-free production of ethylene
Adnan Ozden (University of Toronto)
Yuhang Wang (University of Toronto)
Fengwang Li (University of Toronto)
Mingchuan Luo (University of Toronto)
Jared Sisler (University of Toronto)
Arnaud Thevenon (California Institute of Technology)
Alonso Rosas-Hernández (California Institute of Technology)
Thomas Burdyny (TU Delft - ChemE/Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage)
Yanwei Lum (University of Toronto)
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Abstract
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 process into two cascading steps—CO
2 reduction to CO in a solid-oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) and CO reduction to C
2H
4 in a membrane electrode assembly (MEA) electrolyser—would enable carbonate-free C
2H
4 electroproduction. However, this cascade approach requires CO-to-C
2H
4 with energy efficiency well beyond demonstrations to date. Here, we present a layered catalyst structure composed of a metallic Cu, N-tolyl-tetrahydro-bipyridine, and SSC ionomer that enables efficient CO-to-C
2H
4 in a MEA electrolyser. In the full SOEC-MEA cascade approach, we achieve CO
2-to-C
2H
4 with no loss of CO
2 to carbonate and a total energy requirement of ~138 GJ (ton C
2H
4)
−1, representing a ~48% reduction in energy intensity compared with the direct route.