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Bipolar membranes for intrinsically stable and scalable CO2 electrolysis

Nature Energy volume 9, pages 932–938 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

CO2 electrolysis allows the sustainable production of carbon-based fuels and chemicals. However, state-of-the-art CO2 electrolysers employing anion exchange membranes (AEMs) suffer from (bi)carbonate crossover, causing low CO2 utilization and limiting anode choices to those based on precious metals. Here we argue that bipolar membranes (BPMs) could become the primary option for intrinsically stable and efficient CO2 electrolysis without the use of scarce metals. Although both reverse- and forward-bias BPMs can inhibit CO2 crossover, forward-bias BPMs fail to solve the rare-earth metals requirement at the anode. Unfortunately, reverse-bias BPM systems presently exhibit comparatively lower Faradaic efficiencies and higher cell voltages than AEM-based systems. We argue that these performance challenges can be overcome by focusing research on optimizing the catalyst, reaction microenvironment and alkali cation availability. Furthermore, BPMs can be improved by using thinner layers and a suitable water dissociation catalyst, thus alleviating core remaining challenges in CO2 electrolysis to bring this technology to the industrial scale.

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Fig. 1: Cell configurations for electrochemical CO2R.
Fig. 2: Comparison of performance parameters for AEM-, BPM- and CEM-based CO2 electrolysers.
Fig. 3: Simplified membrane electrode assembly configurations and the voltage contributions of the different components.
Fig. 4: Strategies to alleviate BPM–catalyst interaction.

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Acknowledgements

This work is part of the research programme Towards Large-Scale Electroconversion Systems financed by Shell and the top sectors Chemistry, High Tech Systems and Materials and Energy. This project has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement 852115). This work reflects the authors’ views and the European Research Council Executive Agency is not responsible for any use resulting from the information it contains.

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Kostadin V. Petrov, Christel I. Koopman.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chemical Engineering Department, Delft, the Netherlands

    Kostadin V. Petrov, Christel I. Koopman, Siddhartha Subramanian, Thomas Burdyny & David A. Vermaas

  2. Leiden Institute of Chemistry, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands

    Marc T. M. Koper

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  1. Kostadin V. Petrov
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Correspondence to Marc T. M. Koper, Thomas Burdyny or David A. Vermaas.

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Table with data from 22 references and the calculations for Faradaic efficiency and CO2 crossover.

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Petrov, K.V., Koopman, C.I., Subramanian, S. et al. Bipolar membranes for intrinsically stable and scalable CO2 electrolysis. Nat Energy 9, 932–938 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-024-01574-y

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