Cost-Effective Pressurized Carbon Dioxide Electrolysis: A Techno-economic Assessment

The electrochemical conversion of CO 2 (CO 2 RR) offers a promising approach to lowering atmospheric CO 2 levels while producing value-added chemicals and fuels. Understanding operating parameters is essential for boosting the CO 2 RR performance and scaling up electrolyzers, with pressure playing a critical role due to the inherently low solubility of CO 2 in aqueous electrolytes. In this work, a techno-economic assessment of a pressurized CO 2 -to-CO electrolysis system with a membrane electrode assembly configuration is conducted to evaluate the cost drivers and optimization pathways. Increasing operating pressure from 0 to 40 bar significantly reduces the product cost from US$2259/tCO to US$914/tCO, underscoring the economic advantage of pressurization. At elevated pressures, Faradaic efficiency toward CO can also be increased via increasing CO 2 excess, though this raises downstream separation costs. The minimum levelized cost of CO is achieved when the CO 2 excess is 3.88, corresponding to US$624/tCO. Sensitivity analysis identifies electricity cost as the dominant cost factor. Overall, these findings highlight the economic benefits of pressurized CO 2 electrolysis and provide guidance for future research.