Electrocatalytic conversion of carbon dioxide into synthetic building blocks

从空气中捕获和利用二氧化碳（CO2）的技术正受到行业和政府的关注，以针对建筑物和运输等非点源的温室气体排放。碳工程（斯夸米什米什，不列颠哥伦比亚省）是这一领域的先驱，正在商业化的技术，可以捕获大气中的二氧化碳大规模。在碳工程公司目前的系统中，二氧化碳是从空气中捕获并使用需要大量能源的过程分离的，这大大增加了捕获二氧化碳的成本。该项目的目的是干预这一进程，设计一个系统，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。使用我们实验室开创的新方法，该项目将寻求快速发现新的纳米材料，这些材料可以介导转化过程，具有必要的可扩展性，低成本，耐用性和产品选择性，以纳入可商业化的系统。我们将应用高通量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。项目影响分析和我们的原型技术的生命周期评估将用于确定实施拟议的新技术的环境和经济影响。

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.