Publications

Sustainable Energy Materials &
Processes Laboratory

Journals

Highly Selective CO₂ Reduction to Pure Formic Acid using a Nafion-TiO₂ Composite Porous Solid Electrolyte
Author
Yeomin Kang, Kooyoung Jung, Jusung Kim, Ki Tae Park*
Journal
Advanced Science
Status
Early view
Page
e15967
Year
2025

The electrochemical reduction of CO2 (CO2RR) to liquid fuels and chemicals offers a sustainable route to close the carbon cycle. Solid-state electrolyte (SSE) systems have recently emerged as a breakthrough platform, enabling the direct synthesis of high-purity liquid products. Here, we present a novel Nafion-based porous solid electrolyte (NPSE) with tunable thickness and porosity, replacing conventional bead-type ion-exchange resins. The structural tunability of NPSEs plays a critical role in determining CO2RR performance. Furthermore, we develop a Nafion-TiO2 composite NPSE (NPSE-TiO2), in which TiO2 nanoparticles significantly enhance the selectivity and productivity of formic acid. The NPSE-TiO2 achieves a record-high Faradaic efficiency (FEHCOOH) of 98.6%, the highest value reported to date among SSE system, along with a high partial current density (jHCOOH) of 431.8 mA cm−2, yielding electrolyte-free formic acid with a single-pass concentration of 17.4 wt%. Mechanistic investigations reveal that TiO2promotes the transport of formate anions (HCOO), suppressing back-diffusion of formic acid to cathode and stabilizing cathodic pH.