Electrifying Catalyst Production by Continuous-Flow Slurry Electrolysis

The chemical industry is electrifying toward a net-zero emission future. Unfortunately, the catalyst manufacturing process remains almost untouched in the transition to electrification due to challenges in size controllability and powder handling. Herein, we reported a slurry electrolysis strategy for scale-up production of Cu nanocatalysts at the productivity of 15 g per hour with a Cu loading of 2.5 wt % in laboratory flow electrolyzers, while maintaining excellent controllability of particle size down to single atoms by regulating the nucleation and particle growth process via pulsed electrochemistry. Our strategy can be further extended to the synthesis of Ag and CuAg catalysts for diverse electrochemical applications. Further techno-economic analysis shows an extremely low greenhouse gas emission and production cost (0.03 kg_GHG and 16.4 USD per kg catalyst) compared to traditional approaches. This effectively addresses the productivity bottleneck in the electrosynthesis of nanocatalysts and paves the way for practical applications.