MIT engineers make converting CO2 into useful products more practical
A new electrode design boosts the efficiency of electrochemical reactions that turn carbon dioxide into ethylene and other products.
David L. Chandler | MIT News
Publication Date:November 13, 2024

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New research by engineers at MIT could lead to rapid improvements in a variety of electrochemical systems that are under development to convert carbon dioxide into a valuable commodity. The team developed a new design for the electrodes used in these systems, which increases the efficiency of the conversion process.

The findings are reported today in the journal Nature Communications, in a paper by MIT doctoral student Simon Rufer, professor of mechanical engineering Kripa Varanasi, and three others.

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To demonstrate that their system is robust, the researchers ran a test electrode for 75 hours continuously, with little change in performance. Overall, Rufer says, their system “is the first PTFE-based electrode which has gone beyond the lab scale on the order of 5 centimeters or smaller. It’s the first work that has progressed into a much larger scale and has done so without sacrificing efficiency.”

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“Given that we will need to process gigatons of CO2 annually to combat the CO2 challenge, we really need to think about solutions that can scale,” Varanasi says. “Starting with this mindset enables us to identify critical bottlenecks and develop innovative approaches that can make a meaningful impact in solving the problem. Our hierarchically conductive electrode is a result of such thinking.”

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