CO2 electrolysis is currently still in the development or pilot stage. In addition to the low
availability and high price of renewably generated electisty the industrial implentation of
this technology continues to be hindered by high maintenance costs caused by the low robustness
of its components. in this context this dissertation contributes to bring CO2 electrochemical
reduction closer to industrial applicability by developing more robust alternatives to the
current components for the gas diffusion electrodes used in CO2 electrolysis. To this end a
gas diffusin layer based on a stainless-steel mesh and expanded PTFE membranes was developed
that is through-plane conductive insensitive to electrowetting and competitive with
conventional carbon cloth-based gas diffusion electrodes. Inaddition to enable direct
utilization of CO2 from polluted industrial exhaust poisoning-resistant alternatives to silver
have been identified as chalcogenide-based catalysts for electroreduction of CO2 to CO.
