Sustainable Conversion of Harmful Algae Biomass into a CO2 Reduction Electrocatalyst for Two-Fold Carbon Utilization.
Sustainable Conversion of Harmful Algae Biomass into a CO2 Reduction Electrocatalyst for Two-Fold Carbon Utilization.
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DOI：
10.1021/acs.est.2c07145
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发表时间：
2023-01
影响因子：
11.4
通讯作者：
Xiao Hu;Wu-Jun Liu;Lin-Lin Ma-Lin;Hanwen Yu
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Xiao Hu;Wu-Jun Liu;Lin-Lin Ma-Lin;Hanwen Yu
有害藻华（HAB）在世界各地频繁发生，对环境、人类健康和水生生态系统造成巨大危害。然而，由于藻类的生长速度快，营养吸收能力大，因此可以在其生物量中富集大量的碳（CO2）和营养元素（N和P）。因此，如果有效收获和利用有害藻类生物质，这可以作为对抗全球变暖和水体富营养化的有力方法。在此，我们提出了一种热化学方法，将藻类生物质转化为氮掺杂电催化剂，用于二氧化碳还原。合成的碳催化剂表现出良好的电化学 CO2 还原活性。通过生命周期评估，与常用的垃圾填埋方法进行比较，确定了热化学转化方法中环境影响的关键驱动因素。前者在淡水/陆地生态毒性和人体毒性等影响方面的环境负担比后者低得多。此外，如果热化学转化过程在全球范围内成功应用于生物质转化，则可以从全球碳和其他元素循环中去除2.17×108吨CO2当量、8.42×106吨N和1.21×106吨P。同时，热化学方法在成本方面也与垃圾填埋相似。这项工作的结果为实现二氧化碳的双重利用和有效对抗有害藻华提供了全新的视角。
Harmful algae blooms (HABs) frequently occur all over the world and cause great harm to the environment, human health, and aquatic ecosystems. However, owing to their great growth rate and large nutrient intake capacity, algae can enrich a large amount of carbon (CO2) and nutritional elements (N and P) in their biomass. Thus, this could be applied as a robust approach to battle global warming and water eutrophication if the harmful algae biomass was effectively harvested and utilized. Herein, we propose a thermochemical approach to convert algae biomass into a nitrogen-doped electrocatalyst for CO2 reduction. The as-synthesized carbon catalyst exhibits a favorable electrochemical CO2 reduction activity. The key drivers of the environmental impacts in the thermochemical conversion approach with a comparison with the commonly used landfilling approach are identified with life cycle assessment. The former presents much lower environmental burdens in terms of impacts such as freshwater/terrestrial ecotoxicity and human toxicity than the latter. Moreover, if the thermochemical conversion process was successfully applied for biomass conversion worldwide, 2.17 × 108 tons of CO2-eq, 8.42 × 106 tons of N, and 1.21 × 106 tons of P could be removed from the global carbon and other element cycles. Meanwhile, the thermochemical approach is also similar to landfilling in terms of costs. The results from this work provide a brand-new perspective for achieving twofold CO2 utilization and efficiently battling harmful algae blooms.