Electrocatalytic conversion of carbon dioxide into synthetic building blocks

从空气中捕获和利用二氧化碳（CO2）的技术正受到工业和政府的关注，以针对建筑物和交通等非点源的温室气体排放。Carbon Engineering（卑诗省斯阔米什）是这一领域的先驱，正在将能够大规模捕获大气二氧化碳的技术商业化。在碳工程公司目前的系统中，从空气中捕获二氧化碳并使用一个需要大量能量的过程进行隔离，这对捕获二氧化碳的成本有很大影响。该项目的目的是通过设计一种系统来干预这一过程，该系统可以将捕获的二氧化碳直接转化为具有经济价值的化学品，即燃料和化学品的前体。利用我们实验室首创的新方法，该项目将寻求快速发现新的纳米材料，这些纳米材料可以调节转化过程，具有必要的可扩展性、低成本、耐用性和产品选择性，并将其纳入可商业化的系统中。我们将采用高通量的方法来加速这些材料的发现。机械研究将用于确定反应途径，冠军材料将被纳入模拟全尺寸设备的原型中。我们将应用项目影响分析和原型技术的生命周期评估，以确定实施拟议新技术对环境和经济的影响。

Technologies that capture and utilize carbon dioxide (CO2) from air are gaining attention from industries and governments to target greenhouse gas emissions from non-point sources such as buildings and transportation. Carbon Engineering (Squamish, BC) is a pioneer in this area and is commercializing technology that can capture atmospheric CO2 on a large scale. In Carbon Engineering's current system, CO2 is captured from the air and isolated using a process that requires a large amount of energy, which contributes heavily to the cost of capturing CO2. The aim of this project is to intervene in this process by designing a system that can convert captured CO2 directly into chemicals of economic value, namely, precursors for fuels and chemicals. Using novel methods pioneered by our laboratories, this project will seek to rapidly discover new nanomaterials that can mediate the conversion process with the necessary scalability, low-cost, durability, and product selectivity to be incorporated into a commercializable system. We will apply high throughput methods to accelerate the discovery of such materials. Mechanistic studies will be used to determine the reaction pathways, and champion materials will be incorporated into prototypes that mimic full scale devices. Project impact analyses and life cycle assessments of our prototype technology will be applied to determine the environmental and economic impacts of implementing the proposed new technology.