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CO2 ELECTROREDUCTION

The benefits of cycling

Nature Energy volume 6, pages 698–699 (2021)Cite this article

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The viability of electrocatalytic CO2 reduction as a pathway for CO2 utilization is contingent on developing selective processes towards high-value carbon-based chemicals. New work demonstrates a strategy to expand the possible products to carbonate esters by sequential redox cycles in a single electrochemical cell.

Electrochemical reduction of CO2 offers a sustainable option for CO2 utilization by using renewable electricity and waste CO2 streams to produce carbon-based fuels and chemicals. The most common products of the CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) are CO and formic acid. However, products that are more reduced and multi-carbon products are highly desired given their large energy content and importance as chemical feedstocks1. In order to make the CO2RR a competitive alternative to existing industrial syntheses, it is necessary to develop a suite of selective catalytic processes towards single multi-carbon products. In their work in Nature Energy, Ki Tae Nam and colleagues at Seoul National University present a strategy to expand the possible products of the CO2RR to carbonate esters, which can be used as fuel additives, via sequential redox cycles2. In the first cycle, CO2 is reduced to CO, followed by catalytic formation of dimethyl carbonate (DMC, CO(CH3O)2). The metal catalyst needed for the second reaction is regenerated by a halogen molecule (X2), which is reoxidized at the anode in the final redox cycle.

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Fig. 1: Reactions occurring in CO2 electrolysers.

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  1. Institute of Chemistry, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico

    Ana Sofía Varela

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  1. Ana Sofía Varela
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Correspondence to Ana Sofía Varela.

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Varela, A.S. The benefits of cycling. Nat Energy 6, 698–699 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-021-00870-1

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