Energy comparison of sequential and integrated CO<sub>2</sub> capture and electrochemical conversion.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36104350.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-022-33145-8 and PMC identifier 9474516.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Integrating carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) electrolysis with CO<sub>2</sub> capture provides exciting new opportunities for energy reductions by simultaneously removing the energy-demanding regeneration step in CO<sub>2</sub> capture and avoiding critical issues faced by CO<sub>2</sub> gas-fed electrolysers. However, understanding the potential energy advantages of an integrated process is not straightforward due to the interconnected processes which require knowledge of both capture and electrochemical conversion processes. Here, we identify the upper limits of the integrated process from an energy perspective by comparing the working principles and performance of integrated and sequential approaches. Our high-level energy analyses unveil that an integrated electrolyser must show similar performance to the gas-fed electrolyser to ensure an energy benefit of up to 44% versus the sequential route. However, such energy benefits diminish if future gas-fed electrolysers resolve the CO<sub>2</sub> utilisation issue and if an integrated electrolyser shows lower conversion efficiencies than the gas-fed system.