Solvent‐Free Manufacturing of Multifunctional Gas Diffusion Electrode Architectures for Enhanced CO <sub>2</sub> Conversion From Low‐Concentration Streams
ABSTRACT Electrochemical CO 2 reduction offers a sustainable route to convert greenhouse gases into valuable chemicals and fuels, although unsatisfactory selectivity and sluggish kinetics at low CO 2 concentrations (5–15 vol.%) have hampered its deployment. This work invents a tandem gas diffusion electrode (GDE) leveraging hierarchically engineered microgranules consisting of metal–organic‐frameworks (MOFs), carbon nanotubes (CNTs), and copper nanoparticles to spatially integrate CO 2 pre‐concentration, CO generation, and C─C coupling, significantly enhancing CO 2 ‐to‐C 2 product selectivity via closely coupled active zones. A key innovation lies in the solvent‐free manufacturing of microgranule‐loaded GDEs, which circumvents the dispersion limitations of solvent‐based methods and enables uniform, scalable integration for tandem GDEs targeting low‐concentration CO 2 reduction. The fabricated tandem GDE demonstrates an impressive 39% ± 1% Faradaic efficiency toward C 2 H 4 (FE C2H4 ) and a record high partial current density of 99 mA cm −2 (j C2H4 ) at a 15 vol.% CO 2 stream. To our knowledge, this represents the highest performance reported for low‐concentration CO 2 streams.
Authors
- Kai Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7057-0442)
- Heng Pan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-8919-4210)
- Ahmed Badreldin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2405-1393)
- Shengyao Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2748-483X)
- Zongsu Han (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8920-3792)
- Hong‐Cai Zhou
- Carter Racine
- Ying Li
Institutions
- Walker (United States) (US)
- Texas A&M University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Advanced Functional Materials
- Published
- 2026-03-15
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.74915
- Primary Topic
- CO2 Reduction Techniques and Catalysts
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00