VAVenu Gopal Agarwal

← Research · PhD · 2021 – 2026

Bicarbonate-fed bipolar-membrane electrolysers

manuscript in preparation
Schematic: Protons from the bipolar membrane react with bicarbonate at the catalyst layer, releasing
Protons from the bipolar membrane react with bicarbonate at the catalyst layer, releasing CO2 where it is reduced to CO.

Bicarbonate electrolysers convert captured carbon directly, without regenerating and compressing CO2 gas: protons from a bipolar membrane release CO2 in the catalyst layer, where it is reduced to CO.

Approach

  • Integrated model of a bicarbonate-fed electrolyser: Ni-foam anode, bipolar membrane, Ag catalyst layer and porous cathode.
  • Tracks in-situ CO2 release from bicarbonate by membrane-generated protons and its reduction to CO.
  • Results are in a manuscript in preparation.

What I did

  • Coupled the gas-diffusion-electrode and bipolar-membrane models into one integrated electrolyser model linking electrochemistry, ion transport and water management.
  • Validated against measured CO faradaic efficiencies.
  • Used the model to evaluate catalyst-layer, substrate and membrane designs.
Supervisor: Prof. Sophia Haussener.
Funded by the EPFLglobaLeaders programme, which received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 945363, and by the Swiss National Science Foundation (project 200021_197268).