Scaled CO Electroreduction to Alcohols

Panagiotis Papangelakis, Colin P. O’Brien, Ali Shayesteh Zeraati (), Shijie Liu, Alexander Paik, Vivian Nelson, Sungjin Park, Yurou Celine Xiao, Roham Dorakhan, Puhua Sun, Jinhong Wu, Christine M. Gabardo, Ning Wang, Rui Kai Miao, Edward H. Sargent and David Sinton ()
Additional contact information
Panagiotis Papangelakis: University of Toronto
Colin P. O’Brien: University of Toronto
Ali Shayesteh Zeraati: University of Toronto
Shijie Liu: University of Toronto
Alexander Paik: University of Toronto
Vivian Nelson: University of Toronto
Sungjin Park: University of Toronto
Yurou Celine Xiao: University of Toronto
Roham Dorakhan: University of Toronto
Puhua Sun: University of Toronto
Jinhong Wu: University of Toronto
Christine M. Gabardo: Suite 406
Ning Wang: University of Toronto
Rui Kai Miao: University of Toronto
Edward H. Sargent: University of Toronto
David Sinton: University of Toronto

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Electrocatalysis offers a promising route to convert CO2 into alcohols, which is most efficient in a two-step cascade reaction with CO2-to-CO followed by CO-to-alcohol. However, current alcohol-producing CO2/CO electrolyzers suffer from low selectivity or alcohol crossover, resulting in alcohol concentrations of less than 1%, which are further diluted in downstream cold-traps. As a result, electrocatalytic alcohol production has yet to be scaled beyond the lab (1-10 cm2). Here, we reverse the electroosmotic drag of water using a cation exchange membrane assembly, enabling the recovery of over 85% of alcohol products at a concentration of 6 wt.%. We develop a multi-step condenser strategy to separate the produced alcohols from the effluent gas stream without dilution. Scaling up this approach to an 800 cm2 cell resulted in an output of 200 mL alcohol/day.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-59180-9

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