Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

The emergence of low-cost, low-carbon electricity has resulted in a significant interest in power-to-chemicals, particularly synthetic fuels, for utilization of CO2 and storage of variable electricity. Significant advances have been made in the selective and efficient conversion of CO2 to CO, with large-scale demonstration plants coming online. However, the electrosynthesis of higher valued oxygenates such as ethanol has yet to be demonstrated beyond lab scale. Ethanol is a liquid fuel that can be blended with gasoline to operate combustion engines in passenger vehicles. By using CO2 as the source, the carbon intensity of the fuel can be greatly reduced. Furthermore, ethanol generated from CO2 does not require large amounts of cropland and water to produce, as is the case with corn-derived ethanol.In this project, we will focus on the electrocatalytic synthesis of ethanol from CO2 and renewable electricity. To achieve our goal, the project will be divided into two main aims: catalyst design and system engineering. For catalyst development, we will use a combined computational and experimental approach to understand the pathway of ethanol synthesis from CO2 in order to design highly selective catalysts. For systems engineering, we will design a bench-scale flow cell system specifically to achieve high productivity for liquid fuel products.We will then work on scaling up to a micro-pilot unit capable of producing 10 L of ethanol per day. The end result of this project will be a system that can take renewable energy, CO2 and water as inputs to electrosynthesize ethanol. Through this project, the technology will be sufficiently derisked for the development of a pilot plant facility.