Economically viable conversion of CO₂ into chemical building blocks will necessitate not only excellent catalysts and accurately controlled microenvironments but also the ability to separate CO₂ electrolysis products at a low cost and energy footprint. The conditions for the synthesis of CO₂ electrolysis products are significantly different than the synthesis conditions typically encountered in chemical manufacturing; hence, we need to design and integrate novel separation techniques in the early stages of electrolysis development.

Appreciating the importance of economic factors, we seek to integrate techno-economic analyses in the earliest stages of our research to be sure that we guide our laboratory work towards the achievement of the metrics most relevant for the manufacturing industries. We deploy unit-level operation representation of the electrochemical reactors, which allows us to identify the technology benchmarks critical for the cost and productivity of scaled reactors.

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