SBIR Phase II: Onsite Production of Carbon Monoxide from Carbon Dioxide using Modified Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Electolyzers

小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第二阶段项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发新的二氧化碳利用技术，用于现场天然气生产的商业化。电化学二氧化碳利用技术的障碍一直是缺乏能够高生产率和高能源效率的电解槽设计。该项目将生产一种新的电解槽部件来克服这些挑战，并证明成本效益高的二氧化碳利用是可能的。该组件可以集成到现有的电解槽设计中，并将使此类硬件能够将二氧化碳转化为特种气体。由此产生的解决方案将比传统的包装气体具有更高的安全性和更低的成本。从长远来看，这项技术可以扩大到更大规模的应用，并作为一种手段，将工业二氧化碳排放转化为有用的化学品和燃料，从而将废物转化为新的收入来源。因此，这种可扩展的技术可以成为在美国创造新的经济价值和先进制造业就业机会的基础，同时为美国现有的行业提供减少排放的有利可图的方式。这个小企业创新研究第二阶段项目将建立在第一阶段取得的有希望的可行性成果的基础上，在关键性能方面提高新型二氧化碳电化学电池的性能，以提供与商业相关、具有成本竞争力的解决方案。从二氧化碳等低成本原料中提取特种气体的可行解决方案需要在几个方面具有高性能：能源效率、高反应速率、长寿命和低资本成本。它还需要以与行业相关的规模运营。在第二阶段，新型电化学组件将扩大到商业规模，组件的性能将进行优化，以满足客户访谈中确定的性能要求。最后一个部件将构成一个商业单位的基础，能够以具有成本竞争力的价格从二氧化碳中生产特种气体。它将为未来扩大到更大的膜区域奠定基础，这将使这种二氧化碳转化技术能够实现工业规模的应用。使用这项技术，二氧化碳排放可以转化为有价值的产品。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is in the development of new carbon dioxide utilization technology for the commercialization of onsite gas production. The impediment to electrochemical carbon dioxide utilization technology has been the lack of an electrolyzer design capable of high production rates and high energy efficiency. This project will yield a novel electrolyzer component to overcome these challenges and demonstrate that cost-effective carbon dioxide utilization is possible. This component can be integrated into existing electrolyzer designs, and will enable such hardware to convert carbon dioxide into specialty gases. The resulting solution will have higher safety and lower cost than conventional packaged gas. Long term, this technology could be scaled up to higher volume applications, and used as a means of converting industrial carbon dioxide emissions into useful chemicals and fuels, thereby transforming a waste product into a new revenue stream. This scalable technology could therefore be the basis for the creation of new economic value and advanced manufacturing jobs in the United States, while providing a profitable way for existing U.S. industries to reduce their emissions.This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project will build upon the promising feasibility results achieved in Phase I to increase the performance of a novel carbon dioxide electrochemical cell along key performance dimensions, in order to deliver a commercially-relevant, cost-competitive solution. A viable solution to derive specialty gases from a low-cost feedstock like carbon dioxide will need to have high performance on several dimensions: energy efficiency, high reaction rates, long lifetime, and low capital cost. It will also need to operate at a scale that is industrially relevant. In Phase II, the novel electrochemical component will be scaled up to commercial dimensions, and the performance of the component will be optimized to meet the performance requirements identified during customer interviews. The final component will form the basis for a commercial unit, capable of producing specialty gases from carbon dioxide at cost-competitive rates. It will lay the foundation for future scale-up to even larger membrane areas, which will enable industrial-scale applications of this carbon dioxide conversion technology. Carbon dioxide emissions could be converted into valuable products using this technology.