Abstract
As a complex system involving three phases, the performance of CO2
electroreduction (CO2ER) is commonly constrained by mass transfer
limitations originated from the low solubility of CO2 in aqueous
electrolytes. Although some work has been carried out on mass transfer
limitation, the underlying mechanism remains ambiguous. In this paper, a
mass transfer model based on the Nernst-Planck equation was established
to provide species concentration profiles within the catalyst layer and
the internal effectiveness factor η was calculated to quantify the
severity of mass transfer restrictions. The effects of catalyst layer
thickness, diffusion layer thickness, and buffer concentration on CO2ER
were evaluated based on η. Results show that the internal mass transfer
is obvious in the catalyst layer. Increasing catalyst layer thickness
only has a marginal benefit on current density — a thin catalyst layer
(of about 15 μm) can give an excellent performance under an acceptable
mass transfer limitation.