Membranes and Membrane Systems in Electrified CO₂ Conversion

Dear Colleagues,

There is a global interest in developing the electrified conversion of CO₂ to fuels and chemical feedstocks, with simultaneous high productivity and energy- and atom-efficiency. The membrane is a critical component in CO₂ electrochemical flow reactors, facilitating the ion exchange between the cathode and anode but isolating the half-reactions.

Challenges associated with  membranes persist in current CO₂ electrochemical flow reactors: other than the well-acknowledged carbonate loss problem that has been mitigated recently [1,2], the crossover of liquid products also causes carbon and energy losses; membrane and membrane-involved-interface durability are far from satisfactory; and water management needs to be revisited for the membranes used here.

This Special Issue is open to original research articles, perspectives and min-reviews on membranes and membrane systems in electrified CO₂ conversion. Scope of interest includes:

• Innovative membrane materials, such as cation exchange membranes (CEM), anion exchange membranes (AEM), bipolar membranes (BPM), and diaphragms;
• Membrane system designs associated with CEM, AEM, BPM (either forward bias or reverse bias), and diaphragms;
• Computational simulation of the above-mentioned themes, such as DFT, MD, and multi-physics simulations;
• Techno-economic assessment and life cycle assessment of membranes and membrane systems in electrified CO₂ conversion.

1. Xie, K.; Miao, R.K.; Ozden, A.; et al. Bipolar membrane electrolyzers enable high single-pass CO₂ electroreduction to multicarbon products. Nat. Commun. 2022, 13, 3609.

2. Kim, J.Y.; Zhu, P.; Chen, F.Y.; et al. Recovering carbon losses in CO₂ electrolysis using a solid electrolyte reactor. Nat. Catal. 2022, 5, 288–299.

Dr. Ke Xie
Guest Editor

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