Electrochemical gas capture and separation uses applied potential, rather than heat or pressure swings, to bind and release target gases — opening a route to lower-energy CO2 capture, O2/N2 separation, and selective recovery of acid gases at modest temperatures. The discipline sits at the intersection of electrocatalysis, redox-active organic chemistry, and membrane science, and it draws on much of the same hardware and material set that powers fuel cells, electrolyzers, and flow batteries.
Researchers in this area typically work along three experimental tracks. The first is electrochemically mediated capture, in which redox-active sorbents — quinones and related carbonyls, bipyridinium species, metal-amine complexes, and polymer-bound analogues — are cycled between states with different affinities for CO2 or other Lewis-acidic gases. The second is membrane-based separation driven by ion-conducting polymers and mixed ionic-electronic conductors, where selectivity comes from the transport properties of the membrane and the catalytic interface rather than from a sorbent loop. The third is direct electrocatalytic conversion, where the captured gas is reduced in situ to CO, formate, or other products, blurring the line between separation and CO2 reduction.
Common material families across these tracks include carbon-supported electrocatalysts, sulfonated PFSA and hydroxide-conducting ionomers, polyolefin and ceramic-reinforced separators, gas diffusion layers with integrated microporous layers, and porous current collectors based on sintered metals or carbon paper. Cell formats borrow from PEM and AEM electrolyzer architectures and from redox flow battery hardware.
This catalog treats gas capture and separation as a cross-cutting discipline rather than a single product family. Supporting electrodes, ionomers, membranes, gas diffusion media, and electrochemical cell hardware are distributed across the relevant materials and equipment sections of the rest of the catalog.
