IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natsus/v4y2021i10d10.1038_s41893-021-00739-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Techno-economic assessment of low-temperature carbon dioxide electrolysis

Author

Listed:
  • Haeun Shin

    (University of Delaware)

  • Kentaro U. Hansen

    (University of Delaware)

  • Feng Jiao

    (University of Delaware)

Abstract

Low-temperature CO2 electrolysis represents a potential enabling process in the production of renewable chemicals and fuels, notably carbon monoxide, formic acid, ethylene and ethanol. Because this technology has progressed rapidly in recent years, a systematic techno-economic assessment has become necessary to evaluate its feasibility as a CO2 utilization approach. Here this work provides a comprehensive techno-economic assessment of four major products and prioritizes the technological development with systematic guidelines to facilitate the market deployment of low-temperature CO2 electrolysis. First, we survey state-of-the-art electrolyser performance and parameterize figures of merit. The analysis shows that production costs of carbon monoxide and formic acid (C1 products) are approaching US$0.44 and 0.59 kg–1, respectively, competitive with conventional processes. In comparison, the production of ethylene and ethanol (C2 products) is not immediately feasible due to their substantially higher costs of US$2.50 and 2.06 kg–1, respectively. We then provide a detailed roadmap to making C2 product production economically viable: an improvement in energetic efficiency to ~50% and a reduction in electricity price to US$0.01 kWh–1. We also propose industrially relevant benchmarks: 5-year stability of electrolyser components and the single-pass conversion of 30 and 15% for C1 and C2 products, respectively. Finally we discuss the economic aspects of two potential strategies to address electrolyte neutralization utilizing either an anion exchange membrane or bipolar membrane.

Suggested Citation

  • Haeun Shin & Kentaro U. Hansen & Feng Jiao, 2021. "Techno-economic assessment of low-temperature carbon dioxide electrolysis," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 4(10), pages 911-919, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:natsus:v:4:y:2021:i:10:d:10.1038_s41893-021-00739-x
    DOI: 10.1038/s41893-021-00739-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00739-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41893-021-00739-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Meng Wang & Bingqing Wang & Jiguang Zhang & Shibo Xi & Ning Ling & Ziyu Mi & Qin Yang & Mingsheng Zhang & Wan Ru Leow & Jia Zhang & Yanwei Lum, 2024. "Acidic media enables oxygen-tolerant electrosynthesis of multicarbon products from simulated flue gas," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, December.
    2. Qi Huang & Baokai Xia & Ming Li & Hongxin Guan & Markus Antonietti & Sheng Chen, 2024. "Single-zinc vacancy unlocks high-rate H2O2 electrosynthesis from mixed dioxygen beyond Le Chatelier principle," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, December.
    3. Leiming Hu & Jacob A. Wrubel & Carlos M. Baez-Cotto & Fry Intia & Jae Hyung Park & Arthur Jeremy Kropf & Nancy Kariuki & Zhe Huang & Ahmed Farghaly & Lynda Amichi & Prantik Saha & Ling Tao & David A. , 2023. "A scalable membrane electrode assembly architecture for efficient electrochemical conversion of CO2 to formic acid," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, December.
    4. Hefei Li & Pengfei Wei & Tianfu Liu & Mingrun Li & Chao Wang & Rongtan Li & Jinyu Ye & Zhi-You Zhou & Shi-Gang Sun & Qiang Fu & Dunfeng Gao & Guoxiong Wang & Xinhe Bao, 2024. "CO electrolysis to multicarbon products over grain boundary-rich Cu nanoparticles in membrane electrode assembly electrolyzers," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.
    5. Jin Zhang & Chenxi Guo & Susu Fang & Xiaotong Zhao & Le Li & Haoyang Jiang & Zhaoyang Liu & Ziqi Fan & Weigao Xu & Jianping Xiao & Miao Zhong, 2023. "Accelerating electrochemical CO2 reduction to multi-carbon products via asymmetric intermediate binding at confined nanointerfaces," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, December.
    6. Doris Segets & Corina Andronescu & Ulf-Peter Apfel, 2023. "Accelerating CO2 electrochemical conversion towards industrial implementation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-5, December.
    7. Ke Xie & Rui Kai Miao & Adnan Ozden & Shijie Liu & Zhu Chen & Cao-Thang Dinh & Jianan Erick Huang & Qiucheng Xu & Christine M. Gabardo & Geonhui Lee & Jonathan P. Edwards & Colin P. O’Brien & Shannon , 2022. "Bipolar membrane electrolyzers enable high single-pass CO2 electroreduction to multicarbon products," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-12, December.
    8. Mengyang Fan & Rui Kai Miao & Pengfei Ou & Yi Xu & Zih-Yi Lin & Tsung-Ju Lee & Sung-Fu Hung & Ke Xie & Jianan Erick Huang & Weiyan Ni & Jun Li & Yong Zhao & Adnan Ozden & Colin P. O’Brien & Yuanjun Ch, 2023. "Single-site decorated copper enables energy- and carbon-efficient CO2 methanation in acidic conditions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-8, December.
    9. Zhao, Yi & Hagi, Hayato & Delahaye, Bruno & Maréchal, François, 2024. "A holistic approach to refinery decarbonization based on atomic, energy and exergy flow analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 296(C).
    10. Jun Qi & Yadong Du & Qi Yang & Na Jiang & Jiachun Li & Yi Ma & Yangjun Ma & Xin Zhao & Jieshan Qiu, 2023. "Energy-saving and product-oriented hydrogen peroxide electrosynthesis enabled by electrochemistry pairing and product engineering," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.
    11. Carina Yi Jing Lim & Meltem Yilmaz & Juan Manuel Arce-Ramos & Albertus D. Handoko & Wei Jie Teh & Yuangang Zheng & Zi Hui Jonathan Khoo & Ming Lin & Mark Isaacs & Teck Lip Dexter Tam & Yang Bai & Chee, 2023. "Surface charge as activity descriptors for electrochemical CO2 reduction to multi-carbon products on organic-functionalised Cu," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, December.
    12. Yumei Liu & Yun An & Jiexin Zhu & Lujun Zhu & Xiaomei Li & Peng Gao & Guanjie He & Quanquan Pang, 2024. "Integrated energy storage and CO2 conversion using an aqueous battery with tamed asymmetric reactions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.
    13. Wanyu Deng & Peng Zhang & Yu Qiao & Georg Kastlunger & Nitish Govindarajan & Aoni Xu & Ib Chorkendorff & Brian Seger & Jinlong Gong, 2024. "Unraveling the rate-determining step of C2+ products during electrochemical CO reduction," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-8, December.
    14. Kaili Yao & Jun Li & Adnan Ozden & Haibin Wang & Ning Sun & Pengyu Liu & Wen Zhong & Wei Zhou & Jieshu Zhou & Xi Wang & Hanqi Liu & Yongchang Liu & Songhua Chen & Yongfeng Hu & Ziyun Wang & David Sint, 2024. "In situ copper faceting enables efficient CO2/CO electrolysis," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, December.
    15. Shoujie Li & Xiao Dong & Gangfeng Wu & Yanfang Song & Jianing Mao & Aohui Chen & Chang Zhu & Guihua Li & Yiheng Wei & Xiaohu Liu & Jiangjiang Wang & Wei Chen & Wei Wei, 2024. "Ampere-level CO2 electroreduction with single-pass conversion exceeding 85% in acid over silver penetration electrodes," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, December.
    16. Haozhou Yang & Na Guo & Shibo Xi & Yao Wu & Bingqing Yao & Qian He & Chun Zhang & Lei Wang, 2024. "Potential-driven structural distortion in cobalt phthalocyanine for electrocatalytic CO2/CO reduction towards methanol," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-14, December.
    17. Jiexin Zhu & Jiantao Li & Ruihu Lu & Ruohan Yu & Shiyong Zhao & Chengbo Li & Lei Lv & Lixue Xia & Xingbao Chen & Wenwei Cai & Jiashen Meng & Wei Zhang & Xuelei Pan & Xufeng Hong & Yuhang Dai & Yu Mao , 2023. "Surface passivation for highly active, selective, stable, and scalable CO2 electroreduction," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-13, December.
    18. Xiaoyi Jiang & Le Ke & Kai Zhao & Xiaoyu Yan & Hongbo Wang & Xiaojuan Cao & Yuchen Liu & Lingjiao Li & Yifei Sun & Zhiping Wang & Dai Dang & Ning Yan, 2024. "Integrating hydrogen utilization in CO2 electrolysis with reduced energy loss," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.
    19. Mengran Li & Erdem Irtem & Hugo-Pieter Iglesias van Montfort & Maryam Abdinejad & Thomas Burdyny, 2022. "Energy comparison of sequential and integrated CO2 capture and electrochemical conversion," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-11, December.
    20. Shashwati C. Cunha & Joaquin Resasco, 2023. "Maximizing single-pass conversion does not result in practical readiness for CO2 reduction electrolyzers," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-6, December.
    21. Xin Chen & Junxiang Chen & Huayu Chen & Qiqi Zhang & Jiaxuan Li & Jiwei Cui & Yanhui Sun & Defa Wang & Jinhua Ye & Lequan Liu, 2023. "Promoting water dissociation for efficient solar driven CO2 electroreduction via improving hydroxyl adsorption," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natsus:v:4:y:2021:i:10:d:10.1038_s41893-021-00739-x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.