Fluidized Bed Cathodes Enable High-Rate CO2 to Formate Production and In Situ Microbial Growth

Fluidized Sn, Bi, and In cathodes in a biocompatible CO2 electrolysis chamber enabled formate production up to 0.24 mmol cm2 with 86–92% Faradaic efficiency.

• Why it matters: Conventional flat-electrode CO2 electrolyzers face catalytic surface and mass-transfer limits and use electrolytes that hinder microbial growth, blocking direct coupling of electrolysis with biological conversion.
• What they did: The authors used fluidized electrocatalyst particles in the same chamber as in situ cultivation of Cupriavidus necator, running electrolysis in a biocompatible medium with electricity and CO2/O2 as feeds.
• The result: Electrolysis supported continuous C. necator consumption of electro-generated formate for 5–6 days under aerobic conditions, demonstrating integrated CO2-to-biomass conversion.

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