Guiding CO2 Electrolyzer Material Designs Through Advanced Operando Characterization

为了缓解人为气候变化和解决全球能源不平等问题，需要清洁能源解决方案，以防止大气中二氧化碳的积累。二氧化碳电解具有将二氧化碳转化为有用燃料的潜力，但其工业吸收受到多孔阴极气体扩散电极(GDE)材料设计效率低下的阻碍。因此，碳酸盐在GDE中积聚，堵塞反应部位，导致目标产物气体(如一氧化碳、氢、甲烷和乙烷)的选择性较低。为了应对这些挑战，Bazylak教授和她的团队建议使用动态操纵道同步加速器成像结合化学表征来全面表征二氧化碳电解槽中的质量传输限制。从这项工作中获得的见解将被用于开发用于高效电解槽操作的下一代二氧化碳GDEs。为了进行全面的性能表征，Bazylak教授建议使用多通道恒电位仪与在线气相色谱仪(GC)相结合。多通道恒电位仪将用于评估电化学性能，而在线GC将对二氧化碳还原反应的产物进行量化。这样，法拉第效率(促进二氧化碳还原反应的电子效率)的动态变化可以与碳酸盐的形成相关联(通过操纵面成像)。多通道恒电位仪进一步实现了局部临界电流密度测量，以推断碳酸盐形成对二氧化碳传输的直接影响。该设备将使研究有可能加快二氧化碳电解槽的开发，优化生产有价值的化学品，以推进二氧化碳还原反应的新能源储存途径，并进一步提升加拿大在清洁能源研究方面的领先地位。

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.