High-throughput automated membrane reactor system: The case of CO2/bicarbonate electroreduction

Abstract

Nowadays, CO2 capture and valorization are vital centers of investigation to help mitigate the effects of climate change. Considering that to achieve high conversion efficiencies a great number of catalysts must be tested at different conditions (concentration, pH, temperature, potential, current), automating those processes would greatly help accelerate that progress. Over the last decades, the idea of automatizing the repetitive work in laboratories was always considered, but most of these projects have never been put into practice due to its high implementation costs. However, lately, these costs have been reduced significantly over the last few years due to novel manufacturing and prototyping techniques such as 3D printing and the decrease in electronic and robotic components prices. In this work, a high-throughput system was developed consisting of an automatic station to perform CO2/bicarbonate electroreduction tests. Voltage, stirring rate, reaction duration and repeatability can be fully scanned automatically. The final manufactured automatic station is replicable, cheap and can perform electroreduction tests with little human intervention, increasing the testing capacity, repeatability, and reducing the cost of the experiments. The system can be adapted to other electrochemical reactions.