Hydrogen bond network disruption enables efficient direct reactive capture of CO2 from flue gas

Abstract

Electrochemical CO₂ conversion offers a direct route to decarbonized fuels, but its deployment on industrial flue gas remains hindered by the low CO 2 content, high O 2 levels, and the resulting parasitic oxygen reduction. Binary solvent electrolytes offer a lever to tune the local reaction environment under such dilute and impurity-rich conditions. Here we show a direct reactive capture (DRC) strategy that converts CO₂ from dilute streams into CO with nearquantitative Faradaic efficiency in organic electrolytes under moderate pressure. We identify hydrogen-bond donation ability (HBD) as a decisive parameter governing competing hydrogen evolution and oxygen reduction reactions. Employing low-HBD electrolytes disrupts the hydrogen-bond network, suppresses competing reactions, and enables selective CO₂ conversion even at 1% CO₂ in the presence of O₂. When fed with 15% CO₂ and 8% O₂ balanced with N₂, the optimized system sustains >100 h operation with an energy consumption of 30.7 GJ ton⁻¹ CO, and achieves a solar-to-fuel efficiency of ~5.5%. This impurity-tolerant strategy addresses a key barrier for industrial CO₂ electrolysis and establishes a scalable route to solar-driven fuel production directly from flue gas.

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BibTeX RIS

BibTeX

@article{liu2026hydrogen,
  title = {{Hydrogen bond network disruption enables efficient direct reactive capture of CO2 from flue gas}},
  author = {Jiefeng Liu and Xiaowan Bai and Zakaria Anfar and Eddy Petit and Mathilde Moderne and Ji Li and Wensen Wang and Chrystelle Salameh and Huali Wu and Yan Jiao and Damien Voiry},
  journal = {Nature Communications},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-74647-z},
  url = {https://hal.science/hal-05770614v1},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}

RIS

TY  - JOUR
TI  - Hydrogen bond network disruption enables efficient direct reactive capture of CO2 from flue gas
AU  - Jiefeng Liu
AU  - Xiaowan Bai
AU  - Zakaria Anfar
AU  - Eddy Petit
AU  - Mathilde Moderne
AU  - Ji Li
AU  - Wensen Wang
AU  - Chrystelle Salameh
AU  - Huali Wu
AU  - Yan Jiao
AU  - Damien Voiry
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/30
JO  - Nature Communications
DO  - 10.1038/s41467-026-74647-z
UR  - https://hal.science/hal-05770614v1
AB  - Electrochemical CO₂ conversion offers a direct route to decarbonized fuels, but its deployment on industrial flue gas remains hindered by the low CO 2 content, high O 2 levels, and the resulting parasitic oxygen reduction. Binary solvent electrolytes offer a lever to tune the local reaction environment under such dilute and impurity-rich conditions. Here we show a direct reactive capture (DRC) strategy that converts CO₂ from dilute streams into CO with nearquantitative Faradaic efficiency in organic electrolytes under moderate pressure. We identify hydrogen-bond donation ability (HBD) as a decisive parameter governing competing hydrogen evolution and oxygen reduction reactions. Employing low-HBD electrolytes disrupts the hydrogen-bond network, suppresses competing reactions, and enables selective CO₂ conversion even at 1% CO₂ in the presence of O₂. When fed with 15% CO₂ and 8% O₂ balanced with N₂, the optimized system sustains >100 h operation with an energy consumption of 30.7 GJ ton⁻¹ CO, and achieves a solar-to-fuel efficiency of ~5.5%. This impurity-tolerant strategy addresses a key barrier for industrial CO₂ electrolysis and establishes a scalable route to solar-driven fuel production directly from flue gas.
SN  - 2041-1723
SN  - 2041-1723
ER  -

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