Electrochemical reduction of CO2 to chemical feedstocks
offers a sustainable way to reduce carbon emissions by shifting the
industry away from fossil fuel dependence. However, the lack of understanding
of economic feasibility is hindering this technology from large-scale
application. We proposed a systematic methodology to evaluate and
design the novel route of CO2-to-CO conversion taking ionic
liquid as the electrolyte. Not only a comprehensively economic model
was developed to offer targets for achieving economically competitive
industrialization, but also the Route Selection Index was established
to quickly identify the minimum feed concentration for making use
of diluted CO2 feed more profitable than using pure CO2 streams. We found that although this route is currently expensive
owing to high electrolyzer capitals, it can be economically acceptable
if advanced electrocatalytic performance and electrolyzer system could
be obtained. The results showed that current densities need to reach
at least 200 mA cm–2 at 99% faradaic efficiency
to make this route become competitive with fossil fuel-derived feedstocks.
Furthermore, a minimum concentration of 28 mol % is required to make
the route of using diluted CO2 feed more economically attractive,
providing insights into the feasibility of directly utilizing CO2 from different industry sources.
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