Electroreduction of CO2: Advances in the Continuous Production of Formic Acid and Formate

• Published in: ACS energy letters 2023-04, Vol.8 (4), p.1992-2024
• Main Authors: Fernández-Caso, Kevin, Díaz-Sainz, Guillermo, Alvarez-Guerra, Manuel, Irabien, Angel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2380-8195; 2380-8195
• DOI: 10.1021/acsenergylett.3c00489

The study of the electrochemical CO2 reduction to obtain formate (HCOO–) or formic acid (HCOOH) is receiving much attention as a promising technology. Since continuous–mode operation has become necessary for practical implementation of electrochemical CO2 reduction, recent years have seen a rapid increase in the number of research approaches focusing on this aspect. This Focus Review provides a unified discussion of the available studies on the continuous electroreduction of CO2 to HCOO–/HCOOH, considering the different important features of process design. Moreover, this paper quantitatively assesses the performance of different studies that involve continuous electrochemical reactors for converting CO2 to HCOOH/HCOO–, comparing relevant typically used figures of merit, including energy consumption. Although some relevant trade-offs have already been achieved, the simultaneous optimization of all the figures of merit remains a challenge. Finally, concluding remarks highlight the detected trends and discuss relevant aspects that will have to be tackled by future studies in this field.