(478c) Aprotic Electrochemical Systems for Continuous Carbon Capture and Utilization in Flue Gas Conditions.

The exponential increase in global emission of greenhouse gases such as CO₂ is the overarching concern of the century. Considering the surge in CO₂ concentrations, there is an urgent impetus to develop novel and robust technologies that can continuously separate and capture CO₂ from flue gases. Moreover, the continuous electrochemical conversion of sequestered CO₂ to value-added products is an attractive avenue to generate revenue while mitigating emissions. Herein, we develop an aprotic system that can continuously capture and convert the CO₂ from flue gases. The developed electrochemical system can produce C₂ products at industrially realizable current densities and Faradaic Efficiencies of up to 80% under simulated flue gas conditions. To optimize the developed electrochemical system, we also explore the impact of salt concentration in electrolyte, operating voltage, and gas feed conditions. Finally, we investigate the stability of the developed electrochemical system at elevated temperatures and in the presence of impurities such as SOx to bring it one step closer to actual world application.