Low-temperature CO₂ electrolysis represents a potential enabling process in the production of renewable chemicals and fuels, notably carbon monoxide, formic acid, ethylene and ethanol. Because this technology has progressed rapidly in recent years, a systematic techno-economic assessment has become necessary to evaluate its feasibility as a CO₂ utilization approach. Here this work provides a comprehensive techno-economic assessment of four major products and prioritizes the technological development with systematic guidelines to facilitate the market deployment of low-temperature CO₂ electrolysis. First, we survey state-of-the-art electrolyser performance and parameterize figures of merit. The analysis shows that production costs of carbon monoxide and formic acid (C₁ products) are approaching US$0.44 and 0.59 kg^–1, respectively, competitive with conventional processes. In comparison, the production of ethylene and ethanol (C₂ products) is not immediately feasible due to their substantially higher costs of US$2.50 and 2.06 kg^–1, respectively. We then provide a detailed roadmap to making C₂ product production economically viable: an improvement in energetic efficiency to ~50% and a reduction in electricity price to US$0.01 kWh^–1. We also propose industrially relevant benchmarks: 5-year stability of electrolyser components and the single-pass conversion of 30 and 15% for C₁ and C₂ products, respectively. Finally we discuss the economic aspects of two potential strategies to address electrolyte neutralization utilizing either an anion exchange membrane or bipolar membrane.

低温 CO ₂电解代表了生产可再生化学品和燃料，特别是一氧化碳、甲酸、乙烯和乙醇的潜在促成过程。由于该技术近年来发展迅速，因此有必要进行系统的技术经济评估，以评估其作为 CO ₂使用方法的可行性。在这里，这项工作对四种主要产品进行了全面的技术经济评估，并通过系统性指南优先技术开发，以促进低温 CO ₂的市场部署电解。首先，我们调查了最先进的电解槽性能并参数化了品质因数。分析表明，一氧化碳和甲酸（C ₁产品）的生产成本分别接近 0.44 美元和 0.59 kg ^–1，与传统工艺相比具有竞争力。相比之下，乙烯和乙醇（C ₂产品）的生产并非立即可行，因为它们的成本分别高得多，分别为 2.50 美元和 2.06 kg ^–1。然后，我们提供了使 C ₂产品生产在经济上可行的详细路线图：将能源效率提高到约 50%，并将电价降低到 0.01 美元 kWh ^–1. 我们还提出了与工业相关的基准：电解槽组件的 5 年稳定性以及 C ₁和 C ₂产品的单程转化率分别为 30% 和 15% 。最后，我们讨论了利用阴离子交换膜或双极膜解决电解质中和的两种潜在策略的经济方面。