MIT News November 13, 2024
Electrochemical CO2 reduction has emerged as a promising CO2 utilization technology, with Gas Diffusion Electrodes becoming the predominant architecture to maximize performance. The electrodes must maintain robust hydrophobicity to prevent flooding, while also ensuring high conductivity to minimize ohmic losses. Researchers at MIT demonstrated a hierarchically conductive electrode architecture which overcame the scaling limitations by employing inter-woven microscale conductors within a hydrophobic expanded Polytetrafluoroethylene membrane. They developed a model which captured the spatial variability in voltage and product distribution on electrodes due to ohmic losses and used it to rationally design the hierarchical architecture which could be applied independent of catalyst chemistry or morphology. They demonstrated C2+ Faradaic efficiencies and reduced cell voltage for electrodes by employing their hierarchically conductive electrode architecture… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Material tradeoffs prevent conventional Gas Diffusion Electrodes…. Credit:Â Nature Communications volume 15, Article number: 9429, 13 November 2024Â