Electrochemical conversion of C1 molecules to sustainable fuels in solid oxide electrolysis cells

Stimulated by increasing environmental awareness and renewable-energy utilization capabilities,fuel cell and electrolyzer technologies have emerged to play a unique role in energy storage,conversion,and utilization.In particular,solid oxide electrolysis cells(SOECs)are increasingly attracting the interest of researchers as a platform for the electrolysis and conversion of C1 molecules,such as carbon dioxide and methane.Compared to traditional catalysis methods,SOEC technology offers two major advantages:high energy efficiency and poisoning resistance,ensuring the long-term robustness of C1-to-fuels conversion.In this review,we focus on state-of-the-art technologies and introduce representative works on SOEC-based techniques for C1 molecule electrochemical conversion developed over the past several years,which can serve as a timely reference for designing suitable catalysts and cell processes for efficient and practical conversion of C1 molecules.The challenges and prospects are also discussed to suggest possible research directions for sustainable fuel production from C1 molecules by SOECs in the near future.

Electroreduction of air‐level CO_(2) with high conversion efficiency

The electrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide(CO_(2))has been attracting increasingly research interest in the past decade,with the ultimate goal of utilizing electricity from renewable energy to realize carbon neutrality,as well as economic and energy benefits.Nonetheless,the capture and concentrating of CO_(2) cost a substantial portion of energy,while almost all the reported researches showed CO_(2) electroreduction under high concentrations of(typically pure)CO_(2) reactants,and only very few recent studies have investigated the capability of applying low CO_(2) concentrations(such as~10%in flue gases).In this work,we first demonstrated the electroreduction of 0.03%CO_(2)(in helium)in a homemade gas‐phase electrochemical electrolyzer,using a low‐cost copper(Cu)or nanoscale copper(nano‐Cu)catalyst.Mixed with steam,the gas‐phase CO_(2) was directly delivered onto the gas‐solid interface with the Cu catalyst and reduced to CO,without the need/constraint of being adsorbed by aqueous solution or alkaline electrolytes.By tuning the catalyst and experi‐mental parameters,the conversion efficiency of CO_(2) reached as high as~95%.Furthermore,we demonstrated the direct electroreduction of 0.04%CO_(2) from real air sample with an optimized conversion efficiency of~79%,suggesting a promising perspective of the electroreduction ap‐proach toward direct CO_(2) conversion.

Efficient CO_(2) fixation with acetophenone on Ag-CeO_(2) electrocatalyst by a double activation strategy

The electrocarboxylation reaction is an attractive means to convert CO_(2) into valuable chemicals under ambient conditions,while it still suffers from low efficiency due to the high stability of CO_(2).In this work,we report a double activation strategy for simultaneously activating CO_(2) and acetophenone by silver-doped CeO_(2)(Ag-CeO_(2)) nanowires,featuring as an effective electrocatalyst for electrocarboxylation of acetophenone with CO_(2).Compared to the Ag foil,Ag nanoparticles and CeO_(2) nanowires,the Ag-CeO_(2)nanowire catalyst allowed to reduce the onset potential difference between CO_(2) and acetophenone activation,thus enabling efficient electrocarboxylation to form 2-phenyllactic acid.The Faradaic efficiency for producing 2-phenyllactic acid reached 91%at−1.8 V versus Ag/AgI.This double activation strategy of activating both CO_(2)and organic substrate molecules can benefit the catalyst design to improve activities and selectivities in upgrading CO_(2)fixation for higher-value electrocarboxylation.

Enhanced N-doping in mesoporous carbon for efficient electrocatalytic CO2 conversion

The capability of electrocatalytic reducti on of carbon dioxide(CO2)using nitrogen(N)-doped carb on strongly depe nds on the N-dopi ng level and their types.In this work,we developed a strategy to generate mesoporous N-doped carb on frameworks with tun able configurati ons and contents of N dopants,by using a secondary doping process via the treatment of N,N-dimethylformamide(DMF)solvent.The obtained mesoporous N-doped carbon(denoted as MNC-D)served as an efficient electrocatalyst for electroreduction of CO2 to CO.A high Faradaic efficiency of^92%and a partial current density for CO of-6.8 mA·cm^-2 were achieved at a potential of-0.58 V vs.RHE.Electrochemical analyses further revealed that the active sites within the N-doped carb on catalysts were the pyridinic N and defects gen erated by the DMF treatme nt,which enhan ced the activati on and adsorpti on CO2 molecules.Our study suggests a new approach to develop efficie nt carb on-based catalysts for potential scalable CO2 reduction reaction(CO2RR)to fuels and chemicals.