Guiding CO2 Electrolyzer Material Designs Through Advanced Operando Characterization

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To mitigate anthropogenic climate change and address global energy inequality, clean energy solutions to prevent the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere are required. Carbon dioxide electrolysis has the potential to convert CO2 into useful fuels, but its industrial uptake is hindered by inefficient material design at the porous cathode gas diffusion electrode (GDE). As such, carbonate salts accumulate in the GDE, blocking reaction sites and resulting in low selectivity of product gases of interest, such as carbon monoxide, hydrogen, methane, and ethane. To address these challenges, Prof. Bazylak and her team propose to employ dynamic operando synchrotron imaging coupled with chemical characterization to comprehensively characterize mass transport limitations in CO2 electrolyzers. The insights gained from this work will be used to develop the next generation of CO2 GDEs for high efficiency electrolyzer operation. For comprehensive performance characterization, Prof. Bazylak proposes the use of a multichannel potentiostat system coupled with an online gas chromatograph (GC). The multichannel potentiostat will be used to assess electrochemical performance, while the online GC will quantify the products of the CO2 reduction reaction. This way, dynamic changes in faradaic efficiency (efficiency of electrons facilitating the CO2 reduction reaction) can be correlated to carbonate salt formation (through operando imaging). The multichannel potentiostat further enables localized critical current density measurements to deduce the direct effects of carbonate salt formation on CO2 transport. This equipment will enable research that has the potential to accelerate the development of CO2 electrolyzers optimized for the production of valuable chemicals needed for the advancement of new energy storage pathways from CO2 reduction reactions, and further Canada's leadership in clean energy research.