SBIR Phase II: Scalable Electrochemical Production Of Carbon Nanotubes From Carbon Dioxide

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种可扩展的碳纳米管（CNT）生产工艺，该工艺作为生产工艺的一部分消耗大气中的二氧化碳（CO2）。该项目将以潜在的低成本水平支持CNT材料的国内供应链。市场需要低成本的CNT，因为用CNT替代现有的添加剂可以以同等或更低的成本得到改进的产品。这方面的两个例子是电池添加剂或轮胎添加剂，其中CNT可以取代质量较低的炭黑材料，以打破传统材料的权衡，例如能量与功率密度（电池）或燃油效率与寿命（轮胎）。这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目开发了一种新型的，可持续的电化学碳纳米管（CNT）生产技术，该公司使用二氧化碳和电力生产高质量的CNT产品，达到并超过当今市场产品的质量指标，同时可行地提供具有破坏性的低价CNT产品。 该项目利用电化学和碳纳米材料合成方面的经验，开发可快速扩展的电极架构和制备工艺，以制造这样的电极架构，使CNT的生产成本结构在市场上真正具有破坏性，并实现快速商业化。 为了进一步补充这些技术工作，该项目优化了生长后CNT处理，以更好地调整产品以实现客户集成和利用。 最后，这项工作将证明该方法的商业可行性和材料平台的扩展途径。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 (SBIR) Phase II project is the development of a scalable carbon nanotube (CNT) production process that consumes atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) as part of the production process. This project will support domestic supply chains for CNT materials at potentially disruptively low cost-levels. There is market need for low cost CNTs to companies where replacement of existing additives with CNTs can lead to improved products at equivalent or lower cost. Two examples of this are in battery additives or tire additives, where CNTs can replace lower quality carbon black materials to break traditional materials trade-offs such as energy vs power density (batteries) or fuel efficiency vs lifetime (tires).This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project develops a novel, sustainable electrochemical Carbon Nanotube (CNT) production technology, which uses CO2 and electricity to produce high quality CNT products that meet and exceed the quality metrics of today's market products, while feasibly offering a disruptively lower priced CNT product. This project leverages experience in electrochemistry and carbon nanomaterials synthesis to develop rapidly scalable electrode architectures and preparation processes to fabricate such electrode architectures that enable the production of CNTs at cost structures that are truly disruptive in the marketplace and enable rapid commercialization. To further complement these technical efforts, this project optimizes post-growth CNT processing to better align products for customer integration and utilization. Finally, this work will demonstrate the commercial viability of the approach and a scaling pathway for the materials platform.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.