KAIST Electrode Hits 86% CO₂-to-Ethylene Selectivity
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- KAIST researchers led by Professor Hyunjoon Song built a silver nanowire electrode that hit 86% selectivity toward C₂₊ products (like ethylene) in neutral electrolytes and 79% in alkaline electrolytes — described as a world-leading level
- The three-layer architecture stacks a hydrophobic substrate, a catalyst layer, and an overlaid silver nanowire network, which simultaneously repels electrolyte and serves as a current collector
- The silver nanowires do more than conduct electricity — they actively catalyze CO₂ into carbon monoxide, which transfers to adjacent copper-based catalysts in a tandem system that boosts multi-carbon product yields
- The electrode ran for more than 50 hours without performance degradation, overcoming the durability ceiling of conventional CO₂-reduction electrodes
- Professor Song said the design 'provides a new design strategy' extendable to other valuable products such as ethanol and fuels beyond ethylene
- The study, published in Advanced Science, targets a long-standing bottleneck in electrochemical CO₂ conversion: flooding, where electrolyte saturation reduces the reaction space inside gas diffusion electrodes
Why it matters: The tandem silver-copper catalysis approach hit 86% C₂₊ selectivity in neutral electrolytes with over 50 hours of stable operation — metrics that have long constrained CO₂-to-plastic electrochemical systems. By making silver nanowires function as both conductors and catalysts, the design sidesteps the conductivity-versus-hydrophobicity tradeoff that forced conventional electrodes to add complex components.
