Energy News
CARBON WORLDS
Altered carbon points toward sustainable manufacturing
illustration only
Altered carbon points toward sustainable manufacturing
by Shawn Ballard for WUSTL News
St. Louis MO (SPX) Jun 05, 2024

The recent spike in food prices isn't just bad news for your grocery bill. It also impacts the sugars used in biomanufacturing, which, by the way, isn't quite as green as scientists and climate advocates expected. Surging prices and increasing urgency for genuinely sustainable manufacturing has pushed researchers to explore alternative feedstocks.

Feng Jiao, the Elvera and William R. Stuckenberg Professor in in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, developed a two-step process to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into valuable carbon-based materials used in the production of food, plastics and other commodity chemicals. Jiao's tandem CO2 electrolysis produces acetate and ethylene. Acetate is a close relative of the more familiar acetic acid, or vinegar, which can be used as food for microbes used in biomanufacturing, and ethylene is a common component found in plastics and other polymers.

In a study published June 3 in Nature Chemical Engineering, Jiao demonstrated that his tandem CO2 electrolyzer, which was specifically engineered for enhanced production of multi-carbon products, successfully scales up to produce a kilogram of chemicals per day at high concentration and purity. This represents a 1,000% increase in scale over previous demonstrations, offering a pathway to industrial feasibility, which Jiao and his team further supported with a techno-economic analysis showing the technique's commercial viability.

"Most work in CO2 electrocatalysis is done at a small scale, about a gram a day," said Jiao. "Scaling up by three orders of magnitude to produce a kilogram per day, as we have done, is a big step, but still nowhere near the scale of global CO2 emission, which is gigatons per year.

"Scaling up isn't just about system size," Jiao continued. "We also have to address engineering challenges, for example, how to separate products and how to maintain performance when dealing with scaled up effects in temperature and transport considerations."

Building upon insights gleaned from smaller scale experiments, Jiao's team successfully designed and operated a CO2 electrolyzer and carbon monoxide (CO) electrolyzer in a tandem configuration. The two electrochemical reactors work in series - first converting CO2 to CO, then CO to multi-carbon products - which allows the system to be more efficient through task specialization. The electrolyzer stack performed consistently and stably for over 125 hours - a testament to its robustness, Jiao said. During this operational period, the system churned out 98 liters of acetate at high concentration and 96% purity.

A key achievement of Jiao's system is not only enhanced production capability, but also the system's resilience against industrial impurities, a critical factor in real-world applications. This resilience ensures that the system can maintain its high performance amid challenges posed by typical industrial environments.

"This is the first step in scaling up to commercial applications," Jiao said. "We're trying to invent a scalable way to produce acetate from CO2, which would allow us to shift carbon feedstocks, provide economical pathways to use CO2 and turn it into something useful, and cut down CO2 emissions associated with traditional chemical manufacturing processes. This new pathway gets us very close to net-zero carbon emission."

Back to the grocery store. If Jiao's CO2 conversion process works at a large scale, that's not just saving big money on buying the sugar required to feed the microbes that do the heavy lifting in biomanufacturing. It also avoids the emissions that come with agricultural production of those sugar feedstocks. Even better, producing acetate and ethylene on a massive scale could set up a circular manufacturing process where captured CO2 feeds microbes instead of contributing to harmful environmental impacts. Then, when CO2 is produced as a byproduct of biomanufacturing, it can be recaptured and reprocessed to feed the next generation of microbes.

"We're in the process of scaling the system up again, by another order of magnitude," Jiao said. "We're working on fine-tuning the system, for example by using different catalysts, and improving performance by making the more stable, robust and efficient. If everything works out, we could be seeing this technology in a commercial scale demonstration in five to ten years."

Research Report:Kilowatt-scale tandem CO2 electrolysis for enhanced acetate and ethylene production

Related Links
Washington University in St. Louis
Carbon Worlds - where graphite, diamond, amorphous, fullerenes meet

Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters
Tweet

RELATED CONTENT
The following news reports may link to other Space Media Network websites.
CARBON WORLDS
Ocean Floor Topography Found to Significantly Impact Carbon Sequestration
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jun 05, 2024
The carbon cycle, a key process regulating Earth's climate, involves the movement of carbon between the atmosphere, oceans, and continents. While volcanic eruptions and human activities release carbon dioxide, forests and oceans absorb it, maintaining a balanced system. Carbon sequestration has become a vital method in combating climate change. A recent study reveals that the shape and depth of the ocean floor account for up to 50% of the changes in oceanic carbon sequestration depth over the past ... read more

CARBON WORLDS
Swiss renewable energy battle moves to the ballots

UN chief urges fossil fuel ad ban as heat records pile up

World falling short on 2030 renewables goal: IEA

Australia's first 'green bond' a $4.8 bn hit with markets

CARBON WORLDS
AI Enhances Nanofiber Acoustic Energy Harvesters

AI Approach Elevates Plasma Performance and Stability Across Fusion Devices

Apple versus donut: How the shape of a tokamak impacts the limits of the edge of the plasma

Giant lithium partnership created in Chile

CARBON WORLDS
Why US offshore wind power is struggling - the good, the bad and the opportunity

Robots enhance wind turbine blade production at NREL

Offshore wind turbines may reduce nearby power output

Wind Energy Expansion Planned for China's Rural Areas

CARBON WORLDS
Some countries could meet electricity needs with floating solar panels, research shows

Solar investment outstrips all other power forms: IEA

Upcoming Workshop to Address Net Billing Tariff and Net Energy Metering

SCE Provides Quarterly Updates on Interconnection Capacity Analysis Improvements

CARBON WORLDS
Improved plutonium production methods enhance efficiency and cut costs

Nuclear waste scanning planned before final disposal in Finland

Framatome and TerraPower to develop HALEU pilot production facility

Framatome secures contract for critical underground piping rehab at US nuclear plant

CARBON WORLDS
Vast Gets Approval for Solar Methanol Plant in Port Augusta

Singapore shipper claims milestone with bio-methanol refuelling

Studying bubbles can lead to more efficient biofuel motors

Chicken fat transformed into supercapacitor components

CARBON WORLDS
Ukraine drone strike halts operations at Russian refinery

China's Xi says wants to deepen energy cooperation with Arab states

SE Asia gas expansion threatens green transition: report

Cleaner shipping fuel accelerated global warming: study

CARBON WORLDS
Fed up with inaction, Germany's climate activists contest EU elections

IMF to unlock nearly $600 million for drought-hit Zambia

Climate diplomacy averted worst scenario, but more action needed: UN

What looming La Nina means for global temperatures

Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.