1781
Packed Bed Membraneless Electrolyzers for Electrochemical CO2 Conversion

Wednesday, 1 June 2022: 16:40
West Meeting Room 214 (Vancouver Convention Center)
X. Pang and D. V. Esposito (Columbia University)
Emerging electrolyzers designed for electrochemical conversion of (bi)carbonate into CO can be effectively integrated with CO2 capture processes. Within these conventional bicarbonate conversion schemes, a bipolar membrane or cation exchange membrane is used to deliver protons to the cathode where they convert (bi)carbonate ions into CO2 that is subsequently reduced at the cathode. However, these membranes can be susceptible to fouling or degradation and may add substantial cost. Here, we demonstrate a packed bed membraneless electrolyzer (PBME) design for the conversion of bicarbonate into CO based on sequentially-placed porous flow-through electrodes. Hydrogen oxidation reaction at the anode is used to produce protons in order to facilitate CO2 release for electrochemical CO2 reduction at the downstream cathode in this membrane-free electrolyzer design. This study highlights the ability of PBME to rapidly balance pH across electrodes. In addition, the multi-cell PBME results reveal enhanced performance compared to single-cell PBMEs and demonstrate the scalability of this concept.