Effective perspiration is essential to uphold the stability of zero-gap MEA-based cathodes used in CO₂ electrolysers

Abstract

The application of gas diffusion electrodes (GDEs) for the electrochemical reduction of CO2 to value-added products creates the possibility of achieving current densities of a few hundred mA cm–2. To...

Surfactant-Free Colloidal Syntheses of Precious Metal Nanoparticles for Improved Catalysts

“…It has also been shown recently that removing the surfactant changes the wettability of Ag NP solutions that will then deposit differently in a GDE setup. This overall crucially influences the stability of the catalysts, e.g., an excess of capping agent can lead to a blockage of the electrode micropores . As a last example, it was also shown in a RDE setup for the OER that small amount of PVP could stabilize Ir NPs …”

“…This overall crucially influences the stability of the catalysts, e.g., an excess of capping agent can lead to a blockage of the electrode micropores. 289 As a last example, it was also shown in a RDE setup for the OER that small amount of PVP could stabilize Ir NPs. 68 These results overall illustrate the benefits of surfactant-free NPs that lead to more active nanocatalysts but also enable the investigation of the effects of the surfactant to identify the minimal amount of additives needed to tune, for instance, stability or selectivity, whether these features result from tuning the active sites (e.g., having a role at the surface of the catalysts) or more engineering aspects (e.g., preparation of the catalysts in RDE or GDE).…”

Advances and challenges in membrane electrode assembly electrolyzers for CO2 reduction

“…84 Thiols with different alkyl chain lengths 85 or 1-octadecanethiol 86 can be anchored on the Cu surface through coordination binding, allowing adjustment of the wettability of the GDE surface to manage water and CO 2 transport. Notably, Broekmann et al 87 found that residual or excess polymeric capping agents ( e.g. , polyvinylpyrrolidone and branched polyethylenimine) commonly used in catalyst synthesis procedures might induce GDE flooding, whereas monomeric citrate did not exhibit such a phenomenon.…”

Enhanced CO2 reduction with hydrophobic cationic-ionomer layer-modified zero-gap MEA in acidic electrolyte

“…19,20 When the water coming from the cross-membrane H 3 O + or ECR is inadequate to dissolve and carry away the alkali salt, the salt precipitation will exacerbate the flooding of the GDE and lead to a decrease of ECR efficiency. 21,22 To further investigate the working mechanism of the modification layer, an anion ionomer of Nafion and a hydrophilic SiO 2 microsphere are employed to fabricate the modification layer for comparison, where the modification layer composed by the mixture of PTFE and Nafion is marked as PTFE-N, the electrode coated by SiO 2 and QAPPT is marked as SiO 2 -Q, and the electrode fabricated by coating the mixed ink of Ag, PTFE and QAPPT on carbon paper is marked as Mix (Fig. S7, ESI †).…”

“…19,20 When the water coming from the cross-membrane H 3 O + or ECR is inadequate to dissolve and carry away the alkali salt, the salt precipitation will exacerbate the flooding of the GDE and lead to a decrease of ECR efficiency. 21,22…”