journal article·2025-04-28

Scaling and heating will drive low-temperature CO2 electrolysers to operate at higher temperatures

Henri M. Pelzer, Nikita Kolobov, David A. Vermaas, Thomas Burdyny

Nature Energy· Volume 10· Issue 5
Publisher page

Abstract

No abstract is available for this record. The assistant can identify its topic from the title, but cannot infer the study’s results.

Source: Not provided · Quality: missing

Research context

OpenAlex topics: CO2 Reduction Techniques and Catalysts · Carbon dioxide utilization in catalysis · Carbon Dioxide Capture Technologies

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

References (48)

Show source-provided references
1. Barecka, M. H. & Ager, J. W. Towards an accelerated decarbonization of the chemical industry by electrolysis. Energy Adv. 2, 268–279 (2023).10.1039/D2YA00134A ↗
2. Segets, D., Andronescu, C. & Apfel, U.-P. Accelerating CO2 electrochemical conversion towards industrial implementation. Nat. Commun. 14, 7950 (2023).10.1038/s41467-023-43762-6 ↗
3. Burdyny, T. & Mulder, F. M. Scale-up of CO2 and CO electrolyzers. Joule 8, 2449–2452 (2024).10.1016/j.joule.2024.08.010 ↗
4. Petrov, K. V. et al. Bipolar membranes for intrinsically stable and scalable CO2 electrolysis. Nat. Energy https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-024-01574-y (2024).10.1038/s41560-024-01574-y ↗
5. Ozden, A. et al. Energy- and carbon-efficient CO2/CO electrolysis to multicarbon products via asymmetric ion migration–adsorption. Nat. Energy 8, 179–190 (2023).10.1038/s41560-022-01188-2 ↗
6. Reichbauer, T. et al. Electrical energy input efficiency limitations in CO2-to-CO electrolysis and attempts for improvement. Electrochem. Sci. Adv. 4, e2300024 (2024).10.1002/elsa.202300024 ↗
7. Endrődi, B. et al. High carbonate ion conductance of a robust PiperION membrane allows industrial current density and conversion in a zero-gap carbon dioxide electrolyzer cell. Energy Environ. Sci. 13, 4098–4105 (2020).10.1039/D0EE02589E ↗
8. Technical targets for proton exchange membrane electrolysis. US Department of Energy (accessed 20 March 2025); https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/technical-targets-proton-exchange-membrane-electrolysis
9. Giron Rodriguez, C. A. et al. Insights into zero-gap CO2 electrolysis at elevated temperatures. EES Catal. 2, 850–861 (2024).10.1039/D3EY00224A ↗
10. Vos, R. E. et al. How temperature affects the selectivity of the electrochemical CO2 reduction on copper. ACS Catal. 13, 8080–8091 (2023).10.1021/acscatal.3c00706 ↗
11. Schellekens, M. P., Raaijman, S. J., Koper, M. T. M. & Corbett, P. J. Temperature-dependent selectivity for CO electroreduction on copper-based gas-diffusion electrodes at high current densities. Chem. Eng. J. 483, 149105 (2024).10.1016/j.cej.2024.149105 ↗
12. Krause, R. et al. Industrial application aspects of the electrochemical reduction of CO2 to CO in aqueous electrolyte. Chem. Ing. Tech. 92, 53–61 (2020).10.1002/cite.201900092 ↗
13. Quentmeier, M., Schmid, B., Tempel, H. & Eichel, R.-A. Modular CO2-to-CO electrolysis short-stack design—impact of temperature gradients and insights into position-dependent cell behavior. ACS Sustain. Chem. Eng. 12, 3876–3885 (2024).10.1021/acssuschemeng.4c00630 ↗
14. Crandall, B. S. et al. Kilowatt-scale tandem CO2 electrolysis for enhanced acetate and ethylene production. Nat. Chem. Eng. 1, 421–429 (2024).10.1038/s44286-024-00076-8 ↗
15. Wakerley, D. et al. Gas diffusion electrodes, reactor designs and key metrics of low-temperature CO2 electrolysers. Nat. Energy 7, 130–143 (2022).10.1038/s41560-021-00973-9 ↗
16. Lees, E. W., Mowbray, B. A. W., Parlane, F. G. L. & Berlinguette, C. P. Gas diffusion electrodes and membranes for CO2 reduction electrolysers. Nat. Rev. Mater. 7, 55–64 (2022).10.1038/s41578-021-00356-2 ↗
17. Iglesias van Montfort, H.-P. et al. An advanced guide to assembly and operation of CO2 electrolyzers. ACS Energy Lett. 8, 4156–4161 (2023).10.1021/acsenergylett.3c01561 ↗
18. Kibria, M. G. et al. Electrochemical CO2 reduction into chemical feedstocks: from mechanistic electrocatalysis models to system design. Adv. Mater. 31, 1807166 (2019).10.1002/adma.201807166 ↗
19. Weng, L.-C., Bell, A. T. & Weber, A. Z. Towards membrane-electrode assembly systems for CO2 reduction: a modeling study. Energy Environ. Sci. 12, 1950–1968 (2019).10.1039/C9EE00909D ↗
20. Hansen, K. U., Cherniack, L. H. & Jiao, F. Voltage loss diagnosis in CO2 electrolyzers using five-electrode technique. ACS Energy Lett. 7, 4504–4511 (2022).10.1021/acsenergylett.2c02096 ↗
21. Garg, S., Giron Rodriguez, C. A., Rufford, T. E., Varcoe, J. R. & Seger, B. How membrane characteristics influence the performance of CO2 and CO electrolysis. Energy Environ. Sci. 15, 4440–4469 (2022).10.1039/D2EE01818G ↗
22. Incropera, F. P., DeWitt, D. P., Bergman, T. L. & Lavine, A. S. Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer 6th edn (Wiley, 2007).
23. Wijaya, G. H. A., Im, K. S. & Nam, S. Y. Advancements in commercial anion exchange membranes: a review of membrane properties in water electrolysis applications. Desalin. Water Treat. 320, 100605 (2024).10.1016/j.dwt.2024.100605 ↗
24. Industrial Cooling Systems (Callens, accessed 19 September 2024); https://www.callens.eu/en/air-technology/industrial-cooling
25. Mokhatab, S., Poe, W. A. & Mak, J. Y. in Handbook of Natural Gas Transmission and Processing: Principles and Practices 537–578 (Elsevier, 2019); https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-815817-3.00018-610.1016/B978-0-12-815817-3.00018-6 ↗
26. Toghyani, S., Afshari, E., Baniasadi, E. & Atyabi, S. A. Thermal and electrochemical analysis of different flow field patterns in a PEM electrolyzer. Electrochim. Acta 267, 234–245 (2018).10.1016/j.electacta.2018.02.078 ↗
27. Rossen, A., Daems, N., Choukroun, D. & Breugelmans, T. Differential pressure across a gas diffusion electrode controls efficiency of liquid-fed electrolyzers for CO2 electroreduction at elevated temperatures. ACS Sustain. Chem. Eng. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.4c01908 (2024).10.1021/acssuschemeng.4c01908 ↗
28. Deng, X., Yang, F., Li, Y., Dang, J. & Ouyang, M. Quantitative study on gas evolution effects under large current density in zero-gap alkaline water electrolyzers. J. Power Sources 555, 232378 (2023).10.1016/j.jpowsour.2022.232378 ↗
29. Belsa, B. et al. Materials challenges on the path to gigatonne CO2 electrolysis. Nat. Rev. Mater. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-024-00696-9 (2024).10.1038/s41578-024-00696-9 ↗
30. Moss, A. B. et al. In operando investigations of oscillatory water and carbonate effects in MEA-based CO2 electrolysis devices. Joule 7, 350–365 (2023).10.1016/j.joule.2023.01.013 ↗
31. Disch, J. et al. High-resolution neutron imaging of salt precipitation and water transport in zero-gap CO2 electrolysis. Nat. Commun. 13, 6099 (2022).10.1038/s41467-022-33694-y ↗
32. Joensen, B. Ó. et al. Unveiling transport mechanisms of cesium and water in operando zero-gap CO2 electrolyzers. Joule https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2024.02.027 (2024).10.1016/j.joule.2024.02.027 ↗
33. Sisler, J. et al. Ethylene electrosynthesis: a comparative techno-economic analysis of alkaline vs membrane electrode assembly vs CO2–CO–C2H4 tandems. ACS Energy Lett. 6, 997–1002 (2021).10.1021/acsenergylett.0c02633 ↗
34. García De Arquer, F. P. CO2 electrolysis to multicarbon products at activities greater than 1 A cm−2. Science 367, 661–666 (2020).10.1126/science.aay4217 ↗
35. Nesbitt, N. T. et al. Liquid–solid boundaries dominate activity of CO2 reduction on gas-diffusion electrodes. ACS Catal. 10, 14093–14106 (2020).10.1021/acscatal.0c03319 ↗
36. Biemolt, J., Singh, J., Prats Vergel, G., Pelzer, H. M. & Burdyny, T. Preventing salt formation in zero-gap CO2 electrolyzers by quantifying cation accumulation. ACS Energy Lett. 10, 807–814 (2025).10.1021/acsenergylett.4c03242 ↗
37. Nesbitt, N. T. & Smith, W. A. Water and solute activities regulate CO2 reduction in gas-diffusion electrodes. J. Phys. Chem. C 125, 13085–13095 (2021).10.1021/acs.jpcc.1c01923 ↗
38. Zhang, H., Gao, J., Raciti, D. & Hall, A. S. Promoting Cu-catalysed CO2 electroreduction to multicarbon products by tuning the activity of H2O. Nat. Catal. 6, 807–817 (2023).10.1038/s41929-023-01010-6 ↗
39. Luo, X., Rojas-Carbonell, S., Yan, Y. & Kusoglu, A. Structure–transport relationships of poly(aryl piperidinium) anion-exchange membranes: effect of anions and hydration. J. Membr. Sci. 598, 117680 (2020).10.1016/j.memsci.2019.117680 ↗
40. Wheeler, D. G. et al. Quantification of water transport in a CO2 electrolyzer. Energy Environ. Sci. 13, 5126–5134 (2020).10.1039/D0EE02219E ↗
41. Hurkmans, J.-W., Pelzer, H. M., Burdyny, T., Peeters, J. & Vermaas, D. A. Heating dictates the scalability of CO2 electrolyzer types. EES Catal. https://doi.org/10.1039/D4EY00190G (2025)10.1039/D4EY00190G ↗
42. Jensen, J. K. et al. Heat pump COP, part 2: generalized COP estimation of heat pump processes. In Proc. 13th IIR Gustav Lorentzen Conference on Natural Refrigerants (GL2018) (International Institute of Refrigeration, 2018); https://doi.org/10.18462/IIR.GL.2018.138610.18462/IIR.GL.2018.1386 ↗
43. Siegmund, D. et al. Crossing the valley of death: from fundamental to applied research in electrolysis. JACS Au 1, 527–535 (2021).10.1021/jacsau.1c00092 ↗
44. Garg, S. et al. How alkali cations affect salt precipitation and CO2 electrolysis performance in membrane electrode assembly electrolyzers. Energy Environ. Sci. 16, 1631–1643 (2023).10.1039/D2EE03725D ↗
45. Solubility Table for Water at Temperature (Merck, accessed 10 September 2024); https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/NL/en/support/calculators-and-apps/solubility-table-compounds-water-temperature
46. Sustainion® Anion Exchange Membranes (Dioxide Materials, accessed 11 September 2024); https://dioxidematerials.com/technology/sustainion-membranes/
47. Vaughan, G. L. & Carrington, C. G. Psychrometric properties of a moist carbon dioxide atmosphere. Int. J. Food Prop. 1, 77–87 (1998).10.1080/10942919809524567 ↗
48. Zheng, Y. et al. Energy related CO2 conversion and utilization: advanced materials/nanomaterials, reaction mechanisms and technologies. Nano Energy 40, 512–539 (2017).10.1016/j.nanoen.2017.08.049 ↗