Electrochemical CO2 Reduction Reaction at Industrial Scale: Challenges and Opportunities

In recent decades, an alarming increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration has been caused by excessive use of fossil fuels. Although there have been many efforts to switch from fossil fuels, the pace of switching is far less than the CO2 emission rate. Therefore, other routes should be taken to minimize the environmental impacts of CO2. One way is to convert CO2 to valuable products, which can be done via various methods. The electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (eCO2RR) has shown promising features in comparison to other CO2 conversion processes. In order to build an industrial eCO2RR plant, several challenges, including low current densities caused by slow electron transfer kinetics, large overpotentials driving small energy efficiency (EE), high separation costs as a result of small selectivity, and low stability of catalysts and electrodes need to be overcome. In this study, a concise discussion about the characteristics of a satisfactory e CO2RR, difficulties of achieving these characteristics, and possible pathways of overcoming the introduced difficulties have been conducted.

Keywords:

CO2 Reduction Reaction , Electrochemical CO2 Conversion , Electrocatalysis , Carbon dioxide , Climate change.