Developing New Quinone Based Electrodes for Electrochemical Carbon Capture

Abstract

The need for cost-effective carbon capture technology is rapidly increasing. To limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees within the next century, the level of CO2 mitigation needs to be increased drastically [1]. Current technology, i.e., amine scrubbing, provides several challenges which limit their deployment: high regeneration energy, high operational costs and degradation at high temperatures [2]. An electrochemical approach avoids large energy losses and can selectively uptake CO2 by utilizing redox-active organic molecules. To compete with conventional chemical scrubbing, the electrochemical cell needs high power density, high CO2 uptake and long cycle stability. Redox-active molecules such as quinone-based molecules have been utilized in this area however suffer from low cycling stability due to organic molecules leaking into the electrolyte [3,4]. Quinone-polymer electrodes have shown a high efficiency for CO2 capture however are prone to quinone degradation and low active-material mass [5]. Here we present our work on a new class of quinone-based electrodes for electrochemical CO2 capture, and explore their electrochemistry in the presence and absence of CO2 and quantify their CO2 uptake capacities. This work paves the way for the design and discovery of improved electrode materials for electrochemical CO2 capture. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2018), Global Warming of 1.5 degrees. Available at: https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ (Accessed: 10 December 2021) Rahimi, M., Zucchelli, F., Puccini, M. and Alan Hatton, T., 2020. Improved CO2 Capture Performance of Electrochemically Mediated Amine Regeneration Processes with Ionic Surfactant Additives. ACS Applied Energy Materials, 3(11), pp.10823-10830. Apaydin, D., Głowacki, E., Portenkirchner, E. and Sariciftci, N., 2014. Direct Electrochemical Capture and Release of Carbon Dioxide Using an Industrial Organic Pigment: Quinacridone. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 53(26), pp.6819-6822. Ranjan, R., Olson, J., Singh, P., Lorance, E., Buttry, D. and Gould, I., 2015. Reversible Electrochemical Trapping of Carbon Dioxide Using 4,4′-Bipyridine That Does Not Require Thermal Activation. The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 6(24), pp.4943-4946. Voskian, S and Hatton, T., 2019. Faradaic Electro-swing Reactive Adsorption for CO2 Capture. Energy and Environmental Science, 12(12), pp.3530-3547

Impacts of supercapacitor electrode structure on electrochemical CO2 capture

“…Even at a smaller current density (100 mA g -1 ) with a 5-min voltage hold, no noticeable fading is observed (Figure S19). Our results contrast with the prolonged cycling performance of reported electrochemical CO2 capture approaches such as using redox-active capture agent -quinone, which showed around 50 % loss in CO2 capture capacity over 200 cycles under pure CO2, 9 or around 30 % loss in CO2 capture capacity over 7000 cycles under pure CO2 with polymerised quinone. 7 The excellent robustness of our YP80F electrode-based supercapacitor system further underscores its promise for electrochemical CO2 capture applications.…”

“…3 This approach uses electricity as the sole driving force and has the potential to become an energy-efficient and cost-effective method to separate CO2 at room temperature. 3 A range of electrochemical decarbonisation technologies are under development including those based on electrochemically-driven pH swings, [4][5][6] redox-active molecules that bind CO2 upon electrochemical reduction, [7][8][9][10] and electrochemically mediated amine regeneration [11][12][13] . Key challenges for these electrochemical approaches include the use of critical materials, 14 cell degradation, 6 oxygen sensitivity, 10 and low CO2 capture capacities and rates.…”