Continuous-flow electroreduction of carbon dioxide

Solar fuel generation through electrochemical CO2 conversion offers an attractive avenue to store the energy of sunlight in the form of chemical bonds, with the simultaneous remediation of a greenhouse gas. While impressive progress has been achieved in developing novel nanostructured catalysts and understanding the mechanistic details of this process, limited knowledge has been gathered on continuous-flow electrochemical reactors for CO2 electroreduction. This is indeed surprising considering that this might be the only way to scale-up this fledgling technology for future industrial application. In this review article, we discuss the parameters that influence the performance of flow CO2 electrolyzers. This analysis spans the overall design of the electrochemical cell (microfluidic or membrane-based), the employed materials (catalyst, support, etc.), and the operational conditions (electrolyte, pressure, temperature, etc.). We highlight R&D avenues offering particularly promising development opportunities together with the intrinsic limitations of the different approaches. By collecting the most relevant characterization methods (together with the relevant descriptive parameters), we also present an assessment framework for benchmarking CO2 electrolyzers. Finally, we give a brief outlook on photoelectrochemical reactors where solar energy input is directly utilized.