Polymer‐Supported Liquid Layer Electrolyzer Enabled Electrochemical CO(2) Reduction to CO with High Energy Efficiency

The electrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide (CO(2)) to carbon monoxide (CO) is a favorable approach to reduce CO(2) emission while converting excess sustainable energy to important chemical feedstocks. At high current density (>100 mA cm(−2)), low energy efficiency (EE) and unaffordable cell cost limit the industrial application of conventional CO(2) electrolyzers. Thus, a crucial and urgent task is to design a new type of CO(2) electrolyzer that can work efficiently at high current density. Here we report a polymer‐supported liquid layer (PSL) electrolyzer using polypropylene non‐woven fabric as a separator between anode and cathode. Ag based cathode was fed with humid CO(2) and potassium hydroxide was fed to earth‐abundant NiFe‐based anode. In this configuration, the PSL provided high‐pH condition for the cathode reaction and reduced the cell resistance, achieving a high full cell EE over 66 % at 100 mA cm(−2).