CO2 electrolysis to multicarbon products at activities greater than 1 A cm(-2)

Published

December 23, 2019

Author(s)

Lee J. Richter, Ahmad R. Kirmani, F. P. Garcia de Arquer, Cao-Thang Dinh, Adnan Ozden, Joshua Wicks, Christopher McCallum, Gabardo M. Christine, Ali Seifitokaldani, Xue Wang, Yuguang C. Li, Fengwang Li, Jonathan Edwards, Steven J. Thorpe, David Sinton, Edward H. Sargent, Nam Dae-Hyun, Dae-Hyun Nam

Abstract

Electrolysis offers an attractive route to upgrade greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) to valuable fuels and feedstocks; however, productivity is often limited by gas diffusion through a liquid electrolyte to the surface of the catalyst. Here, we present a catalyst:ionomer bulk heterojunction (CIBH) architecture that decouples gas, ion, and electron transport. The CIBH comprises a metal and a superfine ionomer layer with hydrophobic and hydrophilic functionalities that extend gas and ion transport from tens of nanometers to the micrometer scale. By applying this design strategy, we achieved CO2 electroreduction on copper in 7 M potassium hydroxide electrolyte (pH approximate to 15) with an ethylene partial current density of 1.3 amperes per square centimeter at 45% cathodic energy efficiency.

Citation

Science

Volume

367

Issue

6478

Pub Type

Journals

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DOI Link

Citation

Richter, L. , Kirmani, A. , Garcia, F. , Dinh, C. , Ozden, A. , Wicks, J. , McCallum, C. , Christine, G. , Seifitokaldani, A. , Wang, X. , Li, Y. , Li, F. , Edwards, J. , Thorpe, S. , Sinton, D. , Sargent, E. , Dae-Hyun, N. and Nam, D. (2019), CO2 electrolysis to multicarbon products at activities greater than 1 A cm(-2), Science, [online], https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aay4217 (Accessed October 9, 2025)