Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ROROTE (Round-Robin Testing for CO2 Electrolysis. What is mightier: the cell or the operational conditions?)
Reporting period: 2025-01-01 to 2025-06-30
One of the most important challenges of humanity is to maintain economic growth and well-being in an environmentally sustainable way. The European Green Deal addresses this issue and it aims at making Europe climate neutral by 2050. To reach this aim, a high priority opportunity is the utilisation of waste carbon dioxide to produce valuable chemicals (e.g. energy carriers, fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals) in an environmentally and economically sustainable manner. Our team developed the current best performing low temperature CO2 electrolyser cell at laboratory scale and up-scaled the technology in the SolarCO2Value project. CO2 electrolysis is a promising pathway to produce diverse fuels and chemicals from renewable electricity. Both on the fundamental research level and on TRL levels around 4-6 strong activities from different stakeholders can be observed. This includes universities, start-ups such as eChemicles (applicant) and corporates such as Total Energies or Siemens Energy. However, comparability of performances is difficult due to the lack of standardised test protocols. On the one hand, to push the technology to the next maturity level (TRL 7-8), substantial investments are needed on the individual project level due to high associated CAPEX costs. On the other hand, the lack of thorough benchmarking and validated performances hampers further investments. The aim of this project is to develop a standardised and easily applicable test protocol for CO2 electrolysis to support its scale-up.
We developed a standardised and easily applicable test protocol for CO2 electrolysis.
In order to enhance the reproducibility and comparability, the protocol also includes detailed recommendations on the cell assembly, experiment starting (conditioning) and electrochemical protocol and membrane pretreatment. The developed protocol may serve as a future standard for testing CO2 electrolysers.
Eleven scientists from six different organisations from four countries participated in the project discussions. In addition to eChemicles, the tests were carried out in four different laboratories (DTU, TU Berlin, Fraunhofer UMSICHT, University of Szeged). The conditions were selected to simulate real-world scenarios and application conditions as agreed by the participating experts. The data coherency was achieved in different laboratories. The detailed description of test setups and measurement conditions were identified during the project. The project defined electrochemical protocol for the tests including concrete parameters and KPIs.
In order to enhance the reproducibility and comparability, the protocol also includes detailed recommendations on the cell assembly, experiment starting (conditioning) and electrochemical protocol and membrane pretreatment. The developed protocol may serve as a future standard for testing CO2 electrolysers.
Eleven scientists from six different organisations from four countries participated in the project discussions. In addition to eChemicles, the tests were carried out in four different laboratories (DTU, TU Berlin, Fraunhofer UMSICHT, University of Szeged). The conditions were selected to simulate real-world scenarios and application conditions as agreed by the participating experts. The data coherency was achieved in different laboratories. The detailed description of test setups and measurement conditions were identified during the project. The project defined electrochemical protocol for the tests including concrete parameters and KPIs.
The uncertainty and ambiguity regarding the actual performance of electrolyser systems is one of the greatest barriers of progress in the field of low temperature CO2 electrolysis. Our standardised testing protocol for CO2 electrolysers will have beneficial impact in several areas, such as, performance comparison, quality assurance, accelerated development, regulatory compliance, data transparency, cost reduction, global adoption, benchmarking for Innovation.
Improved, more standardized and comparable testing of low temperature CO2 electrolysis systems will benefit all stakeholders of the European innovation ecosystem active in this field, including R&D performers, investors and end-users.
Improved, more standardized and comparable testing of low temperature CO2 electrolysis systems will benefit all stakeholders of the European innovation ecosystem active in this field, including R&D performers, investors and end-users.