Electrosynthesis of Ethanol from CO2

低成本、低碳电力的出现使人们对电力制化学品，特别是合成燃料，利用二氧化碳和储存可变电力产生了极大的兴趣。在选择性和高效地将CO2转化为CO方面取得了重大进展，大型示范工厂即将投产。然而，电合成更高价值的氧合物，如乙醇，尚未证明超出实验室规模。乙醇是一种液体燃料，可以与汽油混合，驱动乘用车的内燃机。以CO2为源，可以大大降低燃料的碳强度。此外，从二氧化碳中产生的乙醇不像从玉米中提取的乙醇那样需要大量的农田和水来生产。在这个项目中，我们将专注于用二氧化碳和可再生电力电催化合成乙醇。为了实现我们的目标，该项目将分为两个主要目标：催化剂设计和系统工程。对于催化剂的开发，我们将采用计算和实验相结合的方法来了解二氧化碳合成乙醇的途径，以设计高选择性的催化剂。在系统工程方面，我们将专门设计一个实验规模的液流电池系统，以实现液体燃料产品的高生产率。然后，我们将努力扩大到一个微型试验装置，每天能生产10升乙醇。这个项目的最终结果将是一个系统，它可以将可再生能源、二氧化碳和水作为输入来电合成乙醇。通过这一项目，将充分降低技术的风险，以发展一个试验性工厂设施。

The emergence of low-cost, low-carbon electricity has resulted in a significant interest in power-to-chemicals, particularly synthetic fuels, for utilization of CO2 and storage of variable electricity. Significant advances have been made in the selective and efficient conversion of CO2 to CO, with large-scale demonstration plants coming online. However, the electrosynthesis of higher valued oxygenates such as ethanol has yet to be demonstrated beyond lab scale. Ethanol is a liquid fuel that can be blended with gasoline to operate combustion engines in passenger vehicles. By using CO2 as the source, the carbon intensity of the fuel can be greatly reduced. Furthermore, ethanol generated from CO2 does not require large amounts of cropland and water to produce, as is the case with corn-derived ethanol.In this project, we will focus on the electrocatalytic synthesis of ethanol from CO2 and renewable electricity. To achieve our goal, the project will be divided into two main aims: catalyst design and system engineering. For catalyst development, we will use a combined computational and experimental approach to understand the pathway of ethanol synthesis from CO2 in order to design highly selective catalysts. For systems engineering, we will design a bench-scale flow cell system specifically to achieve high productivity for liquid fuel products.We will then work on scaling up to a micro-pilot unit capable of producing 10 L of ethanol per day. The end result of this project will be a system that can take renewable energy, CO2 and water as inputs to electrosynthesize ethanol. Through this project, the technology will be sufficiently derisked for the development of a pilot plant facility.