Effect of molten carbonate composition on the generation of carbon material

Abstract

Carbon dioxide, CO₂, is thought to be a main culprit leading to global climate change and a wide variety of strategies have been proposed to reduce atmospheric CO₂ levels. Here, CO₂ is captured and subsequently electrochemically split into carbon materials in an electrolyzer comprising a eutectic mixture of carbonates, an Fe cathode and a Ni anode, at 600 °C and current densities of 50, 100, 200 mA cm⁻². SEM, EDS, XRD and BET are employed to analyze the morphology, elemental composition, crystal structure as well as the BET surface area of the synthetic cathodic products. In addition, coulomb efficiency under different electrolytic conditions is measured via the comparison between moles of formed carbon product and the Faradays of charge passed during the electrolysis reaction. This paper investigated the effect of molten carbonate compositions on carbon product generation, and confirmed the visible dependence of produced carbon on the electrolytes.