SBIR Phase I: High-efficiency, electrified reverse-water gas shift for sustainable fuels production

这项小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力将是直接和立即降低电子燃料（电燃料）或从电力、二氧化碳和氢气中提取的燃料的长期成本。该过程产生的电子燃料代表了航空、航运和其他具有挑战性的运输领域的化石燃料的重要替代品。该系统的社会影响将使低碳甚至碳中性的电子燃料替代化石燃料成为可能。如果大规模应用于航空领域，这项技术每年可以减少大约10亿吨的温室气体排放。将电子燃料的使用扩展到其他行业，如航运和长途地面运输，每年可减少高达3-5亿吨的排放量。在商业上，该项目开发的电子燃料可以为这些行业数万亿美元的化石燃料市场提供可行的替代方案，如果它们能够成本有效地制造出来的话。这项研究将展示一种解决方案，可以大大降低生产电子燃料的资本成本和运营成本。这个SBIR一期项目建造并演示了一个实验规模的反应器，用于高温反水气转换（RWGS）过程，电力是唯一的能源来源。尽管RWGS具有减少排放的潜力，但由于所需的高温和在传统化学反应器内实现均匀性的困难，RWGS反应尚未得到广泛应用。该项目中提出的微结构材料在实验室规模的初步实验中显示出前所未有的反应速度和过程强度。这项研究将集中于改进这些材料，提高它们的耐久性，并将它们整合到一个综合反应堆系统中。该技术项目将包括：(1)开发反应器的多尺度模型，以优化反应器材料的几何形状；(2)优化反应器材料的原型制作；(3)根据需要用涂层和活性金属修饰微结构材料；(4)对反应器系统进行测试，优化反应。在项目结束时，该系统将准备集成到一个更大的试点系统中，这将为二氧化碳和氢衍生产品带来前所未有的成本降低，并在绿色化学中得到更广泛的应用。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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 I project will be to directly and immediately lower the long-term costs of e-fuels (electrofuels), or fuels derived from electricity, carbon dioxide and hydrogen. The e-fuels produced by the process represent an important alternative for fossil fuels in aviation, shipping, and other areas of transportation that are challenging to electrify. The societal impact of the system would allow low-carbon or even carbon-neutral, drop-in replacement e-fuels for fossil fuels. Applied at scale to the aviation sector, this technology could enable reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of roughly 1 Gigaton (Gt) annually. Extending e-fuels usage into additional sectors such as shipping and long-haul ground transportation could enable up to 3-5 Gt annual reductions in emissions. Commercially, the e-fuels developed in this project could provide a viable alternative for a multi-trillion-dollar market for fossil fuels in these sectors if they can be made cost effectively. The research would demonstrate a solution that can achieve substantially lower capital costs and operating costs of producing e-fuels. This SBIR Phase I project builds and demonstrates a bench-scale reactor for a high-temperature reverse water-gas shift (RWGS) process with electricity as the only energy source. Despite its potential to mitigate emissions, the RWGS reaction has not been widely deployed due to the high temperatures required and the difficulty in achieving uniformity within conventional chemical reactors. The micro-structured materials presented in the project have shown unprecedented reaction rates and process intensity in initial experiments at the lab-scale. The research will focus on improving these materials, and their durability and incorporating them into an integrated reactor system. The technical project will include: (1) developing a multi-scale model of the reactor to optimize the geometry of the reactor materials; (2) prototyping and fabricating the optimized reactor materials; (3) modifying the micro-structured materials with coatings and active metals as needed; and (4) testing of the reactor system to optimize the reaction. At the end of the project, the system will be ready for integration into a larger pilot-scale system that should unlock unprecedented cost reductions for carbon dioxide and hydrogen derived products and broader applications within green chemistry.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.