Nanostructured carbon dioxide reduction electrocatalyst design and electrochemical device integration

气候变化是全球公认的21世纪最大的挑战之一。加拿大政府通过签署2016年《巴黎气候协定》和实施联邦规定的碳排放价格，明确承诺建设低碳未来。然而，政策变化不足以实现在未来12年内将碳排放量减少30%的既定目标。加拿大迫切需要创新的新技术来实现向可持续能源经济的过渡。这项研究计划的目标是开发节能、低成本的人工光合作用原型，利用可再生电力（风能、太阳能、水能）将二氧化碳电化学转化为有价值的碳基化学物质。这项技术将允许加拿大最大的温室气体排放者（即石化工业）通过直接将其转化为有价值的化学物质来减少排放，包括用于制造塑料的乙烯或用于燃料的乙醇。随着全球市场开始向低碳产品和工艺转变，这个研究项目的时机非常理想。此外，可再生电力的成本继续下降到前所未有的水平，包括风能和太阳能的价格低至每千瓦时0.03美元，在加拿大的某些地区，廉价的水力发电在非高峰时段可用。阻碍人工光合作用技术发展的关键挑战是缺乏能够将CO2分子电化学转化为燃料和化学品的活性和选择性催化剂，以及缺乏能够实现实际效率和CO2转化率的设备设计。本研究项目通过合成、表征和性能评估用于电化学CO2还原的新型纳米材料催化剂，直接解决了这些挑战。通过建立科学的设计原则，指导催化剂的活性和选择性，改进的催化剂纳米材料将被设计并集成到工程人工光合作用原型装置中，进行性能优化和演示。这种纳米材料和设备设计的创新将产生具有成本竞争力的技术，加拿大公司将这些技术商业化，以利用迅速扩大的清洁能源市场，并使工业减少碳排放，减少相关税收，减轻气候变化对社会和环境的破坏性后果。此外，社会期望促使投资者在评估商业决策时考虑可持续性，公司将被要求采用清洁能源技术来满足这些需求。

Climate change is globally acknowledged as one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century. The Canadian Government has unequivocally committed to a low-carbon future through signing the 2016 Paris Climate Accord and implementing a federally mandated price on carbon emissions. However, policy changes are insufficient to accomplish the established goal of reducing carbon emissions by 30% over the next 12 years. Innovative new technologies are urgently needed to enable Canada's transition to a sustainable energy economy. The objective of this research program is to develop energy efficient and low-cost artificial photosynthesis prototypes that use renewable electricity (wind, solar, hydro) to electrochemically convert CO2 into valuable carbon-based chemicals. This technology will allow Canada's largest greenhouse gas emitters (i.e., the petrochemical industry) to reduce their emissions by directly converting them into valuable chemicals, including ethylene used to manufacture plastics, or ethanol for fuel. The timing of this research program is ideal as global markets begin the shift towards low-carbon products and processes. Furthermore, the cost of renewable electricity continues to drop to unprecedented levels, including wind and solar prices as low as $0.03 per kWh, and inexpensive hydro-power available in off-peak hours in certain parts of Canada. The key challenges hindering the development of artificial photosynthesis technologies are the lack of active and selective catalysts that can electrochemically convert CO2 molecules into fuels and chemicals, and the lack of device designs that can achieve practical efficiency and CO2 conversion rates. This research program directly addresses these challenges through the synthesis, characterization and performance evaluation of novel nanomaterial catalysts for electrochemical CO2 reduction. By establishing scientific design principles that guide catalyst activity and selectivity, improved catalyst nanomaterials will be designed and integrated into engineered artificial photosynthesis prototype devices for performance optimization and demonstration. This innovation in nanomaterial and device designs will generate cost-competitive technologies that will be commercialized by Canadian companies to capitalize on rapidly expanding clean energy markets, and to enable industry to decrease carbon emissions, reducing associated taxes and mitigating the devastating societal and environmental consequences of climate change. Furthermore, societal expectations are causing investors to consider sustainability when evaluating business decisions, and companies will be required to adopt clean energy technologies to meet these demands.