Electrosynthesis of Ethanol from CO2

低成本、低碳电力的出现引起了人们对电力到化学品的极大兴趣，特别是合成燃料，以利用CO2和储存可变电力。在选择性和有效地将二氧化碳转化为一氧化碳方面取得了重大进展，大规模示范工厂即将投入使用。然而，更高价值的含氧化合物如乙醇的电合成尚未在实验室规模之外得到证实。乙醇是一种液体燃料，可以与汽油混合，以操作乘用车中的内燃机。通过使用CO2作为源，可以大大降低燃料的碳强度。此外，利用CO2生产乙醇不像玉米乙醇那样需要大量的农田和水。本课题将重点研究利用CO2和可再生电力的电催化合成乙醇。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，我们将使用计算和实验相结合的方法来了解从CO2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室规模的流动池系统，以实现液体燃料产品的高生产率。然后，我们将致力于扩大规模，使其能够每天生产10 L乙醇。该项目的最终结果将是一个可以将可再生能源，二氧化碳和水作为电合成乙醇的输入的系统。通过该项目，该技术将充分降低风险，用于开发试验工厂设施。

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.