STTR Phase II: Scalable CO2 electrolyzers for the competitive carbon negative production of formic acid

STTR 第二阶段：可扩展的 CO2 电解槽，用于有竞争力的碳负生产甲酸

• 批准号: 2240491
• 负责人: Anders Laursen
• 金额: $ 98.18万
• 依托单位: RENEWCO2 LLC
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Cooperative Agreement
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-10-01 至 2025-09-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2240491&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: STTR; Phase; II; Scalable; CO2

The broader impact of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project is the development of an electrocatalytic formic acid production process directly from carbon dioxide (CO2) and electricity. This process will mitigate greenhouse gas emissions while producing formic acid, currently used in agriculture for silage preservation, leather tanning, and the chemical industry. The economic analysis projects that such an electrocatalytic process can currently compete with oil/gas-derived formic acid in the current market. Furthermore, this process has the potential to achieve net negative greenhouse gas emissions, meaning it will consume carbon dioxide in order to produce valuable chemical products. Immediate applications include using waste CO2 from sources such as bio-ethanol production, pyrolysis plants, landfill gas, power plants with carbon capture technology, etc. Formic acid production from CO2 feedstock in a renewable-powered, low-temperature process is expected to offset CO2 emissions equivalent to ~1 million tons, but with future further transportation and energy storage markets, the CO2 impact can reach the gigaton scale.This STTR Phase II project develops a low-energy consumption electrolyzer for CO2 utilization in a process powered by electricity rather than heat. The electrolyzer combines the cathodic reduction of CO2 and water to formic acid with anodic water oxidation. Formic acid is a major commodity chemical used in agriculture, leather treatment, and environmentally-friendly deicing of roadways. Future markets include its use as a liquid hydrogen storage media. Electrosynthesis of carbon products from CO2 has generally been plagued with low electrical and process energy efficiencies that have prevented commercial development. The nickel phosphide catalyst class demonstrates a high potential to overcome these obstacles. Commercial application of electrochemical technologies require reaction rates three orders of magnitude larger than current research studies have shown, combined with high energy efficiencies and product selectivities. These goals can only be achieved by improving catalyst kinetics and optimizing the electrolyzer's mass transport. This development effort takes on the challenge of taking this process to high current densities and continuous operation in commercial CO2 reduction applications while minimizing the competing hydrogen formation reaction. Lastly, the electrolyzer design principles developed in this project are universal to this family of catalysts across many carbon products and are expected to further the field of carbon dioxide electrolyzer development more broadly.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.

这种小型企业技术转移（STTR）II期项目的更广泛影响是直接从二氧化碳（CO2）和电力的电催化甲酸生产过程开发。此过程将减轻温室气体排放，同时产生甲酸，目前用于农业中，用于青贮饲料，皮革晒黑和化学工业。经济分析预测，这种电催化过程目前可以在当前市场与石油/天然气衍生的甲酸竞争。此外，此过程有可能实现净负温室气体排放，这意味着它将消耗二氧化碳以生产有价值的化学产品。直接应用包括使用来自诸如生物乙醇生产，热解植物，垃圾填埋气，具有碳捕获技术的发电厂等来源的废物二氧化碳。在可再生的，低温的过程中，来自二氧化碳原料中的甲酸产量预计可预计可抵消二氧化碳量的co2，但要远离100万个量表，但要延伸到〜100万个量表，该量表均高估了co2的量表。项目在由电力而不是热量驱动的过程中开发出用于CO2利用率的低能消耗量。电解酶将二氧化碳和水的阴极还原与阳极水氧化的甲酸相结合。甲酸是一种用于农业，皮革处理和对道路环境友好型的农业的主要商品化学化学物质。未来的市场包括用作液态氢存储介质。来自CO2的碳产物的电气合成通常受到阻止商业发展的低电和工艺能量效率的困扰。镍磷化物催化剂类别表现出克服这些障碍的高潜力。电化学技术的商业应用要求反应速率三个比当前研究大的数量级的数量级表明，与高能量效率和产品选择性相结合。这些目标只能通过改善催化剂动力学和优化电解仪的大众传输来实现。这种开发工作面临着将此过程带到高电流密度和在商业二氧化碳减少应用中连续运行的挑战，同时最大程度地减少了竞争性的氢形成反应。最后，该项目中开发的电解酶设计原理是许多碳产品中的催化剂家族的普遍性，预计将进一步更广泛地扩大二氧化碳电解剂的开发领域。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并认为通过基金会的知识分子和更广泛的影响，可以通过评估来进行支持，并被认为值得获得支持。