Solid State Protonic Electrosynthesis of Zero Carbon Fuels

固体氧化物电解电池利用可再生能源的电力，利用高温运行的热力学效益，以高效率地从蒸汽中产生高纯度的氢。这也同样适用于二氧化碳减排。固体质子氧化物电解是一种有吸引力的替代方案，因为水可以被送入阳极室，水被氧化产生氧气，质子在阴极产生氢气，当二氧化碳被馈送到阴极时，它被电子和/或氢气还原，产生可控的合成气。通过仔细控制组成和加工，可以实现成功的质子电解槽提供性能和稳定性，可能在低至300℃的温度下。先前的研究表明，这些质子导电电解质（如Ba(Ce，Y,Zr)O3）可以提供良好的水气转换活性，并确实直接转化为甲烷。最近的研究表明，这些材料可以掺杂过渡金属，如Cu和Ni，在还原过程中产生相当有趣的溶出结构。这就提供了在化学或电化学还原后用金属纳米颗粒（如Cu和/或Ni）修饰水气移活性钙钛矿表面的潜力。在这个项目中，我们试图用先进的电催化剂来实现这种质子电解槽，开发出能够在中等温度下有效运行的薄电解质的结构。我们将以具有良好碳键活化活性的金属为目标，并将寻求直接电合成潜在的零碳燃料。

Solid oxide electrolysis cells generate high purity hydrogen from steam at high efficiency using electricity from renewable sources, exploiting thermodynamic benefits of high temperature operation. This has similarly been applied to CO2 reduction. Solid Protonic Oxide Electrolysis is an attractive alternative as water can be fed into the anode compartment where water is oxidized to yield oxygen and protons to yield hydrogen at the cathode and when CO2 is fed to the cathode it is reduced by electrons and/or hydrogen to yield controlled syngas. With careful control of composition and processing successful protonic electrolysers can be achieved to deliver both performance and stability, possibly at temperatures down to 300oC.Previous work has shown that these proton conducting electrolytes (eg Ba(Ce,Y,Zr)O3) can deliver good water gas shift activity and indeed direct conversion to methane . Recent work has shown that these materials can be doped with transition metals such Cu and Ni to yield quite intriguing exsolution structures on reduction . This offers the potential to decorate Water Gas Shift active perovskite surfaces with metallic nanoparticles of eg Cu and/or Ni upon chemical or electrochemical reduction .In this project we seek to implement such proton electrolysers with exolved electrocatalysts, developing structures that afford thin electrolytes that will allow efficient operation at moderate temperature. We will target metals with good activity for carbon bond activation and will seek to perform direct electrosynthesis of potential zero carbon fuels.