Anthropogenic CO
2 emissions are one of the leading causes of global warming.
1 In order to limit warming to 1.5 °C over the next century, the development of efficient carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies is essential. Conventional CCS methods, such as amine scrubbing or adsorption by a solid sorbent, often use high pressure or temperature swings to regenerate capture materials leading to significant energy losses.
2 One emerging alternative technology is the capture of CO
2 by redox-active carrier molecules in an electrochemical cell.
3 Quinone-based electrodes are potentially promising capture materials for these processes as they have high electrochemical activities and theoretical CO
2 capacities.
4–6 In these systems, the quinone molecules are reduced by the application of a potential and the reduced species react selectively with CO
2. The CO
2 can later be released by the application of the reverse potential.
5 As such, this technology is potentially advantageous as it mitigates the high energy losses associated with traditional CCS methods. However, as this technology is in its infancy, the mechanism of CO
2capture is still poorly understood. Solid-state NMR spectroscopy is uniquely suited for the study of such mechanisms as it is highly sensitive to the local chemical environment. In this work, we explore the mechanisms of electrochemical CO
2 capture by quinone-based electrodes using
13C NMR spectroscopy.
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References:
[1] IPCC, An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, World Meteorologcal Organisation, Geneva, Switzerland, 2018.
[2] N. S. Sifat and Y. Haseli, Energies, , DOI:10.3390/en12214143.
[3] S. E. Renfrew, D. E. Starr and P. Strasser, ACS Catal., 2020, 10, 13058–13074.
[4] Y. Liu, H. Z. Ye, K. M. Diederichsen, T. Van Voorhis and T. A. Hatton, Nat. Commun., 2020, 11, 1–11.
[5] S. Voskian and T. A. Hatton, Energy Environ. Sci., 2019, 12, 3530–3547.
[6] B. Gurkan, F. Simeon and T. A. Hatton, ACS Sustain. Chem. Eng., 2015, 3, 1394–1405.
