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Electrochemical regeneration of high-purity CO2 from (bi)carbonates in a porous solid electrolyte reactor for efficient carbon capture

Nature Energy volume 10, pages 55–65 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Carbon dioxide (CO2) and absorbent regeneration are the most energy-intensive processes in carbon capture loops. Conventional carbon capture technologies typically consume substantial amounts of heat and involve multiple steps for regeneration. Here we demonstrated one-step electrochemical regeneration of CO2 and alkaline absorbent from carbon-containing solutions in a modular porous solid electrolyte (PSE) reactor. By performing hydrogen evolution and oxidation redox reactions, our PSE reactor selectively split NaHCO3/Na2CO3 solutions, which typically come from air contactors after CO2 absorption, into NaOH absorbent in the catholyte and high-purity CO2 gas in the PSE layer. No chemicals were consumed and no by-products were generated. High Na+-ion transport number (~90%), high capture capacity retention (~90%), low energy consumptions (50 kJ molCO2−1 and 118 kJ molCO2−1 at 1 mA cm−2 and 100 mA cm−2 for bicarbonate, respectively) and long-term stability (>100 hours) were demonstrated. We achieved industrially relevant carbon regeneration rates of up to 1 A cm−2 (~18 mmol cm−2 h−1), highlighting the promising application potential.

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Fig. 1: Comparison between thermal and electrochemical CO2 regeneration in the CO2–carbonate carbon capture loop.
Fig. 2: Comparison between our porous solid electrolyte reactor design and traditional electrolysers for CO2 regeneration from (bi)carbonates.
Fig. 3: The CO2 regeneration performance under a continuous flow of NaHCO3 and Na2CO3 solutions through the middle PSE layer with different concentrations.
Fig. 4: Carbon balance analysis in a electrolyte recirculation mode.
Fig. 5: Practical cycle operations for CO2 regeneration in our PSE reactor.

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Data availability

The data supporting the findings of this study are available in the main text, Supplementary Information and source data provided with this paper. Additional data related to this study may be requested from the corresponding author. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Robert A. Welch Foundation (grant number C-2051-20230405) and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation (grant number 2020-71371).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Xiao Zhang, Zhiwei Fang, Peng Zhu.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Xiao Zhang, Zhiwei Fang, Peng Zhu, Yang Xia & Haotian Wang

  2. Department of Chemistry, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Haotian Wang

  3. Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Haotian Wang

Authors
  1. Xiao Zhang
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Contributions

X.Z. and H.W. conceived the project and designed the experiments. X.Z. and Z.F. performed the experimental study. P.Z. performed the TEA study. Y.X. performed the energy consumption comparison of different methods. X.Z. and H.W. wrote the paper with support from all authors. H.W. supervised this project.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xiao Zhang or Haotian Wang.

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Competing interests

X.Z. and H.W. are listed as inventors on a patent application filed by the Rice University that pertains to this work. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Energy thanks Ung Lee and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Notes 1–7, Figs. 1–22, Tables 1–5 and Refs. 1–25.

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Zhang, X., Fang, Z., Zhu, P. et al. Electrochemical regeneration of high-purity CO2 from (bi)carbonates in a porous solid electrolyte reactor for efficient carbon capture. Nat Energy 10, 55–65 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-024-01654-z

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