Advances in Designing 3D‐Printed Systems for CO₂ Reduction

Abstract

The increasing level of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), and the resultant global warming is a matter of growing concern among scientists, environmentalists, and climate experts across the globe over the past several decades. Numerous attempts are being undertaken today that seek solutions to mitigate this global crisis. This includes designing functional catalysts, devices and reactors to convert greenhouse gasses such as CO2 into useful products like low‐carbon fuels and chemicals, thereby reducing the amount of CO2 considerably in the atmosphere. Advancements in emerging technologies like 3D‐printing can effectively aid in the fabrication of electrodes and devices to tackle the rising CO2 concerns. Low cost, rapid prototyping ability, and printing simple and complex structure are few of the significant merits of this technology. Thus, in this perspective article, discussions on fabricating 3D‐printed (electro)catalysts, customized devices, reactors, etc., via multiple strategies are put forward with emphasis on the electrochemical reduction of CO2. Also, a detailed discussion on the post‐printing treatments, catalyst modifications, and other CO2 mitigation strategies is provided as well. Although studies in this direction are scarcely reported, observations made hitherto show promising possibilities of broadening this field for large scale CO2 reduction reaction applications, and similar catalytic applications in the near future.

Engineering 3D Printed Structures Towards Electrochemically Driven Green Ammonia Synthesis: A Perspective

“…[27,28] Fundamental advantages of this technology emanate from its features like immediate prototyping ability, scalability, repeatability, flexibility in structural design, the capacity of manufacturing complex designs, and minimal waste generation. [19,22] The technology today has come a long way from its initial usage of generating prototypes to a full-fledged 3D printing industry based across regions. The principles of 3D printing techniques have evolved with time based on the precursor materials used, setup cost, and targeted applications.…”

“…[43] Good accuracy and resolution, versatility, multicolor, and multimaterial printing are added advantages of this technique. [18,19]…”

“…3D printing differs from the traditional manufacturing technique such as "subtractive manufacturing," where, in the case of the latter, the expected final structures are carved out of a bulk material via drilling, milling, sawing, broaching, and so on. [18,19,23] The excess waste generated during preparation, immense time consumption involved in designing complex structure, the requirement of extensive human effort, expensive instrumental setups, and the inability to alter the volumetric density of the building material are a few of the drawbacks associated with subtractive manufacturing. [22] Debates on the efficiency of 3D printing and conventional techniques are ongoing.…”

“…3D printing technology has garnered significant recognition in recent years for its multidimensional possibilities, and escalating scientific advancement toward electrocatalytic applications. [20,24,31,32,77,78] However, 3D printed electrodes-an ever-expanding domain with great possibilities-have been surprisingly overlooked for ammonia production although they have been well explored for HER, [31,79] oxygen evolution reaction (OER), [80,81] carbon dioxide reduction reactions (CO 2 RR), [19,32] and CO 2 capture. [19] In short, the primary objective of this section is to understand the feasibility of the available 3D printing technology to fabricate 3D printed structures for NRA efficiently.…”

“…From the fabrication point of view, traditional formative manufacturing techniques such as injection moulding, and subtractive manufacturing techniques such as drilling, cutting, and milling, although practiced, have several limitations. [18,19] For instance, complexity associated in device and electrode fabrication, along with time consumption and high cost, has slowed the pace toward fabricating state-of-the-art catalysts. Also, poor selectivity, stability, activity, and mass transfer limitations associated with the catalysts limit their usage for catalytic applications directly.…”