3D‐Printable Fluoropolymer Gas Diffusion Layers for CO₂ Electroreduction

Abstract

The electrosynthesis of value‐added multicarbon products from CO2 is a promising strategy to shift chemical production away from fossil fuels. Particularly important is the rational design of gas diffusion electrode (GDE) assemblies to react selectively, at scale, and at high rates. However, the understanding of the gas diffusion layer (GDL) in these assemblies is limited for the CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR): particularly important, but incompletely understood, is how the GDL modulates product distributions of catalysts operating in high current density regimes > 300 mA cm−2. Here, 3D‐printable fluoropolymer GDLs with tunable microporosity and structure are reported and probe the effects of permeance, microstructural porosity, macrostructure, and surface morphology. Under a given choice of applied electrochemical potential and electrolyte, a 100× increase in the C2H4:CO ratio due to GDL surface morphology design over a homogeneously porous equivalent and a 1.8× increase in the C2H4 partial current density due to a pyramidal macrostructure are observed. These findings offer routes to improve CO2RR GDEs as a platform for 3D catalyst design.

3D Printing of High Viscosity Reinforced Silicone Elastomers

“…Feedstock development challenges hinge on maintaining desired properties while adapting the material to conform to the engineering constraints of a particular printer and/or printing process. As examples, this may include endowing a material with UV-reactive functional groups for a stereolithography (SLA) process [8] or formulating with thixotropic additives to facilitate direct ink writing (DIW) [9]. Here, we have approached this problem by co-developing Polymers 2021, 13, 2239 2 of 15 a UV-curable silicone elastomer with the build of an SLA printer specifically designed to handle the viscous nature of reinforced silicone resin.…”

A brief review of electrocatalytic reduction of CO2—Materials, reaction conditions, and devices

“…Aiming at sustainable applications with high energy efficiency, plenty of efforts have been made on the continuous‐flow devices of ECR with low resistance of mass and electron transfer (Figure 10E). 140‐144 A universal architecture was depicted by Endrődi et al 143,144 in Figure 10D, consisting of two flow channels separated by an ion‐exchange membrane and surrounded by gas diffusion layers (GDL). This type of cell can significantly decrease the resistance between cathode and anode, and the GDL with porous structure provides high surface area for triple‐phase interaction, which can offer high current densities at several hundreds of milli‐ampere/cm −2 .…”

“…This type of cell can significantly decrease the resistance between cathode and anode, and the GDL with porous structure provides high surface area for triple‐phase interaction, which can offer high current densities at several hundreds of milli‐ampere/cm −2 . Zhang et al 144 applied 2 mol/L KCl electrolyte with a simple Cu catalyst which can exhibit 150 mA cm −2 with 80% C 2+ FE. Sargent's group using an ionomer bulk heterojunction structure of Cu catalyst to achieve as high as 1 A cm −2 of partial FE to produce multi‐carbons, which has already been at industrial levels 145 .…”

Computational Design of Microarchitected Flow-Through Electrodes for Energy Storage

“…The electrochemical, transport, and hydrodynamic responses of the unit cells as a function of the rod radius must be determined to apply the porous electrode model. Briefly, a 3D resolved, microscopic model of the isotruss unit cell in Figure 1a is developed using the commercial CFD software package Starccm+ (Siemens), a more detailed description of the procedure can be found in the Supporting Information and from our previous work [66,67]. The intrinsic area per volume and porosity depend on the ratio of the internal rod radius to the fixed unit cell edge length, L.…”