A novel high performance configuration of electrochemical cell to produce alkali for sequestration of carbon dioxide

• DOI: 10.1016/j.electacta.2016.09.123
• Publication Date: 2016-09-30T14:16:00Z
• Authors: Asad Mehmood; Muhammad Ibrahim ...; Ju-Young Lee; Jinyeon Hwang; Kwang-Deog Jung; Heung Yong Ha
• Keywords: Electrochemical cell

Abstract We propose a new configuration of a 3-compartment electrochemical cell for producing alkali that is subsequently utilized for mineralization of carbon dioxide. In this new membrane configuration, a second cation exchange membrane (CEM) replaces the anion exchange membrane (AEM) employed in a standard cell configuration. The electrochemical cell comprising of two cation exchange membranes (a CEM-CEM system) eliminates the issues associated with the AEM such as low ionic conductivity and inferior mechanical strength. All of tested CEM-CEM combinations exhibit superior electrochemical performance with considerable reduction of energy requirement for NaOH production in comparison to the standard AEM-CEM configuration. The optimized two-CEMs-based system presents a remarkable enhancement of output current density by 2.5-fold and a substantial input energy savings up to 740 kWh ton −1 for mineralization of carbon dioxide to produce sodium carbonate.