Formic acid is used on a large scale for the green deicing of runways and planes at airports. It also functions as a medium for the safe storage of H2, which can be catalytically released on demand to be used in fuel cells and catalytic reduction. The conceptual advance described in this paper is a novel strategy for the manufacture of metal-free, hierarchically structured, nitrogen-doped, nanoporous carbon-carbon nanotube composite membranes that can be utilized as a gas diffusion electrode for the large scale electrochemical reduction of CO2-to-formate. We believe that the manufacturability and low cost of this novel class of membrane bode well for the development of a wide range of practical applications for the electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction to value-added chemicals and fuels.
The full article can be read on the Angewandte Chemie website.