Power‐to‐Ethanol Using Bimetallic Catalysts: Reaction Paths, Transfer to Gas Diffusion Electrode, and Future Perspectives

ABSTRACT

Ethanol is a promising product for the carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO₂RR), as ethanol as a value-added product can help to enable the near-term feasibility of this technique, thus Power-to-ethanol can act as a pioneering process for the CO₂RR. Furthermore, CO₂RR offers a green production process for ethanol in addition to biomass fermentation. However, the formation of ethanol via electrolysis often competes with ethylene production, which makes the selective formation of ethanol more difficult. We show that this problem can be circumvented by using a bimetallic catalyst that provides abundant *CO and thus activates an alternative and selective reaction path for ethanol. However, this study was carried out in an aqueous-fed H-type electrolyzer, which has mass transport limitations and thus insufficient current densities. To solve this issue, the studied catalyst is transferred to a gas diffusion electrode. Here we emphasize that, in addition to other relevant parameters, the choice of the binder also can have a high impact on the performance of the electrode. As an outlook, various enhanced reactor designs and their influence on ethanol formation are presented.

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