Work

Strategies for Paired Electrolysis with Enhanced Efficiency

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Paired electrolysis, which couples value‐added oxidation and reduction half‐reactions within an electrolyzer with or without a membrane, offers a promising route to maximize electrical energy efficiency, reduce chemical waste, and enhance economic returns. Unlike many conventional electrolysis processes, where one electrode undergoes a sacrificial reaction, paired electrolysis simultaneously generates useful products at both electrodes. This review outlines the fundamentals and challenges of paired electrolysis, highlighting strategies to improve performance by minimizing thermodynamic potentials and overpotentials (activation, ohmic, and mass transfer). Representative examples of utilizing novel paired electroysis to enhance the conventional chlor‐alkali process, green hydrogen production, electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction, and electrochemical ammonia synthesis are summarized. This review concludes with perspectives on future research areas, including computational studies, durable ion exchange membranes, integrating electrocatalysis with other processes, scaling up electrolyzers, and techno‐economic analysis. Efficiently integrating paired electrolysis into renewable‐powered chemical manufacturing offers a promising, sustainable approach to simultaneously generating fuels and chemicals.

Source: Advanced Energy and Sustainability Research

DOI: 10.1002/aesr.202500344