SBIR Phase I: Light-Driven Conversion of CO2 and Methane to Syngas

这个小企业创新研究项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是，拟议的化学反应器利用天然气中的甲烷（一种天然资源）和工业过程中的废二氧化碳来制造合成气（一种广泛使用的工业气体）。合成气是生产氢、氨、甲醇和合成燃料的重要资源。氢可用作汽油的清洁替代燃料，氨用于生产食品肥料，甲醇可用于生产烯烃，用于生产塑料。这种化学反应器使用LED光作为能源，而不是燃烧燃料产生的热量，以消耗两种有效的温室气体，并以具有竞争力的价格创造出商业相关的产品。使用LED灯允许使用可再生电力，只要可用，为化学反应提供动力，实际上简化了化学制造过程并减少了碳排放。该反应器的一些商业益处是：（a）它是低成本的：由具有成本效益的材料（例如玻璃）构建，（B）它可以根据需要启动和关闭，（c）它可以制成大型工厂或有效地按比例缩小以构建小规模分布式反应器以在应用点产生合成气。该SBIR第一阶段项目建议建立和演示一个用于干甲烷重整（DMR）反应的实验室规模的光反应器，该反应器使用LED光作为其主要能源。迄今为止，DMR由于非常高的温度要求和缺乏商业上相关的稳定催化剂而尚未实现商业化。所提出的光催化剂克服了以前DMR的挑战。在实验室规模上，经过长时间的测试，它已经显示出前所未有的高反应速率，选择性和稳定性。这个为期6个月的项目将重点关注对该技术开发至关重要的三个基本方面：（a）在COMSOL中开发实验室规模反应器的多物理热模型，以了解入射光的能量效应和催化剂床上反应的吸热性，（B）构建实验室规模反应器并进行热分析实验，以测量和优化反应速率和能量效率，（c）建立一个技术经济模型，用于确定该反应堆商业化的可行性。该项目成功完成后，反应堆将准备在测试设施进行更大规模的试点实施。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research project is that the proposed chemical reactor utilizes methane from natural gas, a native resource, and waste carbon dioxide from industrial processes to create syngas, a widely used industrial gas. Syngas is a crucial resource for production of hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, and synthetic fuels. Hydrogen can be used as a clean alternative fuel to gasoline, ammonia is used in the production of fertilizer for food, and methanol can be used to produce olefins that are used to produce plastics. This chemical reactor uses LED light as an energy source instead of heat from burning fuel to consume two potent greenhouse gases and create a commercially relevant product at a competitive price. Using LED light allows for the use of renewable electricity, whenever available, to power the chemical reaction, in effect electrifying the chemical manufacturing process and reducing its carbon emissions. Some commercial benefits of this reactor are: (a) it is low-cost: built out of cost-effective materials such as glass, (b) it can startup and shut down on demand, (c) it can be made into large plants or efficiently scaled-down to build small-scale distributed reactor to produce syngas at the point-of-application. This SBIR Phase I project proposes to build and demonstrate a bench-scale photoreactor for dry methane reforming (DMR) reaction that uses LED light as its primary energy source. To date, DMR has not achieved commercialization due to very high temperature requirements and lack of commercially relevant stable catalyst. The presented photocatalyst overcomes the previous challenges with DMR. At lab-scale, it has has shown unprecedented high reaction rate, selectivity, and stability after long duration testing. This 6-month project will focus on three foundational aspects critical to this technology development: (a) develop a multi-physics thermal model of the bench-scale reactor in COMSOL to understand the energetic effects of the incident light and the endothermicity of the reaction on the catalyst bed, (b) build a bench-scale reactor and perform photocatalysis experiments to measure and optimize reaction rates and energy efficiency, (c) build a techno-economic model that can be used to determine the feasibility of this reactor for commercialization. Upon successful completion of the project, the reactor will be ready for a larger scale pilot implementation at a testing facility.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.