Electricity generation by a novel CO2 mineralization cell based on organic proton-coupled electron transfer

Abstract Carbon dioxide (CO2) mineralization is an advantageous and effective way to reduce CO2 emissions. In previous work, our research group presented a CO2 mineralization cell that sued alkaline solid waste and CO2 as raw materials to produce both electricity and baking soda. Two generations of the cell have been developed. In this paper, we report a novel version of the CO2 mineralization cell in which a highly soluble, proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET), organic redox couple is used to facilitate CO2 mineralization and electricity generation without the need of a precious metal catalyst such as platinum. The cell presented a maximum power density of 96.75 W m−2 (much higher than that the previously reported mineralization cells without a PCET redox couple). This cell could generate 146 kWh per ton of CO2 mineralized. The reaction mechanism of the cell is based on PCET considerably improved power generation capacity towing to the excellent characteristics of the organic catalyst. This idea provides a new direction toward solving the problem of needing precious metal catalysts in fuel cells.