Proposing Oxalic Acid as Chemical Storage of Carbon Dioxide to Achieve Carbon Neutrality

Increasing emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere due to the use of fossil fuels and ongoing deforestation are affecting the global climate. To reach the Paris climate agreement, in the coming decades low emission technologies must be developed, which allow for carbon removal on a Gt per year-scale. In this regard, we propose the electrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide to oxalic acid as a potentially viable pathway for large scale CO₂ utilization and storage. Combined with water oxidation, in principle this transformation does not need stoichiometric amounts of co-reagents and minimize the necessary electrons for the reduction of carbon dioxide.