While the potential of CO$_2$R towards C2+ products is widely recognised,
the technique struggles with industrial scale-up.
Within this report, an elaborated analysis is performed on the industrial potential of CO2 reduction, more specifically on cells op
...
While the potential of CO$_2$R towards C2+ products is widely recognised,
the technique struggles with industrial scale-up.
Within this report, an elaborated analysis is performed on the industrial potential of CO2 reduction, more specifically on cells operating in a strongly acidic medium. These type of cells boast not only a high CO2 conversion of over 70\% but also potentially enable the extraction of liquids at concentrations required for efficient separation as opposed to anion exchange membrane (AEM) based cells. Although immature the acidic cell has been proven to achieve excellent C2+ product formation with a faradaic efficiency above 75\%. A currently not surpassed barrier is the scale-up of acidic cells above 1 cm$^2$ as most utilize a non-conductive polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) membrane. Within this research an alternate approach was examined adopting the conductivity of a modified commercial carbon gas diffusion layer (GDL). Using the hydrophobicity of PTFE beneath, within and on top of the catalyst layer, a CO$_R$ promoting environment is created. Within this research, one of the largest highly acidic (pH<1) cells to date has been devised while yielding a respectable faradaic efficiency towards C2+ products of 53\%.
