Left: expanded view of components in a simple GDE|Aq reactor setup. Right: assembled GDE|Aq reactor. Credit: ARC Center of Excellence for Carbon Science and Innovation

A problem for researchers has been a lack of an agreed-upon standard gas diffusion electrode reactor to enable robust comparison of catalytic reactions. Instead, the common practice is to compare the performance of a new catalyst for a particular reaction against that of a "standard" or benchmark catalyst, within the same reactor. This practice reveals a further problem when no standard catalyst exists for a reaction, which typically applies to most reactions. In other words, researchers lack a platform to compare reaction processes.

Ideally, a new catalyst is compared to a standard catalyst (if it exists), and in a reproducible reactor.…