Electrochemical flow systems enable renewable energy industrial chain of CO₂ reduction

The development of a comprehensive renewable energy industrial chain becomes urgent since renewable energy will soon dominate the power generation. Among the industries, carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO₂RR), which uses energy to convert carbon dioxide into high-value products and reduce CO₂ in the atmosphere, is regarded as a promising and potential industrial application. The conventional H-type reactor shows limited catalytic activity toward CO₂RR, leading to the incompatible combination with the massive renewable energy. The flow systems – flow-cell reactor and the membrane electrode assemblies – show the promising selectivity and activities of CO₂RR products, meeting the criteria for industrial mass production. In this Perspective, I start by comparing the market price and annual global production of major CO₂RR products with the necessary costs using technoeconomic analysis for industrial utilization. Subsequently, I systematically summarize the catalytic performances of the same copper catalyst in these reactors for CO₂RR and discuss the possibility of industrialization. Owing to the distinctive catalytic behaviors in flow systems, I finally present prospects to investigate the catalytic mechanisms by developing various in-situ techniques in these flow systems to speed up the renewable energy industry.