(Invited) Scalable Synthesis of Low Carbon Fuels via CO2 Electrolysis

ECS Meeting Abstracts · 2024-08-09 · 1 citations

Over three trillion tons of greenhouse gasses have been emitted since the start of the industrial revolution, with dire consequences for our climate, including an increase in the regularity of natural disasters such as heatwaves, wildfires, and hurricanes. Cost-effective, industrial-scale CO2 recycling using renewable energy sources could form the basis of an artificial carbon cycle to produce the same products that are currently derived from fossil resources while mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Towards this end, Twelve is developing a highly efficient and scalable electrochemical reactor that converts CO2 into valuable building blocks for chemicals and fuels such as carbon monoxide (CO). The resulting CO can be blended with green hydrogen from water electrolyzers to form syngas, enabling an ultra-low carbon pathway to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) via the Fischer-Tropsch process. At scale, this technology could eliminate the aviation industry’s dependence on fossil resources by providing an alternative source of carbon-based compounds for jet fuel. Twelve is presently scaling up the technology to reduce production costs and achieve industrially relevant production rates. This talk will present Twelve’s CO2 electrolysis technology and highlight collaborative development efforts towards our commercialization goals.

Cu Based Dilute Alloys for Tuning the C₂₊ Selectivity of Electrochemical CO₂ Reduction

Small · 2024-07-12 · 15 citations

Abstract Electrochemical CO 2 reduction is a promising technology for replacing fossil fuel feedstocks in the chemical industry but further improvements in catalyst selectivity need to be made. So far, only copper‐based catalysts have shown efficient conversion of CO 2 into the desired multi‐carbon (C 2+ ) products. This work explores Cu‐based dilute alloys to systematically tune the energy landscape of CO 2 electrolysis toward C 2+ products. Selection of the dilute alloy components is guided by grand canonical density functional theory simulations using the calculated binding energies of the reaction intermediates CO*, CHO*, and OCCO* dimer as descriptors for the selectivity toward C 2+ products. A physical vapor deposition catalyst testing platform is employed to isolate the effect of alloy composition on the C 2+ /C 1 product branching ratio without interference from catalyst morphology or catalyst integration. Six dilute alloy catalysts are prepared and tested with respect to their C 2+ /C 1 product ratio using different electrolyzer environments including selected tests in a 100‐cm 2 electrolyzer. Consistent with theory, CuAl, CuB, CuGa and especially CuSc show increased selectivity toward C 2+ products by making CO dimerization energetically more favorable on the dominant Cu facets, demonstrating the power of using the dilute alloy approach to tune the selectivity of CO 2 electrolysis.

Electrolyzer and method of use

OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) · 2023-04-05

Disclosed are membrane electrode assemblies having a cathode layer comprising a carbon oxide reduction catalyst that promotes reduction of a carbon oxide; an anode layer comprising a catalyst that promotes oxidation of a water; a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) layer disposed between, and in contact with, the cathode layer and the anode layer; and a salt having a concentration of at least about 10 uM in at least a portion of the MEA.

Effect of Gold Catalyst Surface Morphology on Wetting Behavior and Electrochemical CO₂ Reduction Performance in a Large-Area Zero-Gap Gas Diffusion Electrolyzer

The Journal of Physical Chemistry C · 2022-11-09 · 12 citations

Catalyst surface area and wetting behavior are key factors in determining the performance of gas diffusion electrode (GDE) electrolyzers for electrochemical CO2 reduction. In this work, we report the integration of sub-1 μm thick nanoporous gold (npAu) catalyst coatings into a large-area (25 cm2) zero-gap electrolyzer. The npAu coatings were prepared by magnetron sputtering (MS) of thin AgAu alloy films on the microporous carbon layer of a gas diffusion layer (GDL) followed by Ag leaching. Compared to MS Au films of the same thickness, npAu catalyst coatings enable higher Faradaic efficiencies and improved catalyst stability for CO2-to-CO reduction with Faradaic efficiencies of up to 88% at 100 mA/cm2. For a 800 nm npAu coating, the device level energy efficiency for CO2 to CO conversion reaches 45% (52% for CO + H2) at 100 mA/cm2 with a single pass CO2 conversion efficiency of ∼12%. Contact angle measurements reveal that npAu coatings provide a more hydrophobic electrode interface compared to MS Au coatings, suggesting that the more hydrophobic interfacial environment of npAu coatings helps mitigating electrode flooding which is associated with performance deterioration over time.

CalTestBed - Opus 12 - Study of Diffusion Media and Polymer Electrolyte Materials in Devices for CO2 to Fuels (CRADA Final Report)

2022-06-27

Capturing carbon dioxide is one of the great ways to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere while providing valuable renewable energy. Opus 12 is a Cyclotron Road startup using a membrane-electrode assembly (MEA) design. LBNL helped Opus 12 optimize its MEA design in this project through materials characterization and in situ studies. The finding of this project was used to develop a set of ideas for their MEA improvement under different operating conditions.

Scalable Gas Diffusion Electrode Fabrication for Electrochemical CO₂ Reduction Using Physical Vapor Deposition Methods

ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces · 2022 · 46 citations

• Materials science
• Chemical engineering
• Nanotechnology

, demonstrating the scalability for industrial ECR applications.

2022 roadmap on low temperature electrochemical CO₂ reduction

Journal of Physics Energy · 2022 · 224 citations

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Nanotechnology

Abstract Electrochemical CO 2 reduction (CO 2 R) is an attractive option for storing renewable electricity and for the sustainable production of valuable chemicals and fuels. In this roadmap, we review recent progress in fundamental understanding, catalyst development, and in engineering and scale-up. We discuss the outstanding challenges towards commercialization of electrochemical CO 2 R technology: energy efficiencies, selectivities, low current densities, and stability. We highlight the opportunities in establishing rigorous standards for benchmarking performance, advances in in operando characterization, the discovery of new materials towards high value products, the investigation of phenomena across multiple-length scales and the application of data science towards doing so. We hope that this collective perspective sparks new research activities that ultimately bring us a step closer towards establishing a low- or zero-emission carbon cycle.

Nanomaterials for carbon dioxide conversion at industrial scale

Nature Nanotechnology · 2022-07-21 · 17 citations

Evaluating the stability and activity of dilute Cu-based alloys for electrochemical CO2 reduction

The Journal of Chemical Physics · 2021-09-20 · 22 citations

Cu-based catalysts currently offer the most promising route to actively and selectively produce value-added chemicals via electrochemical reduction of CO2 (eCO2R); yet further improvements are required for their wide-scale deployment in carbon mitigation efforts. Here, we systematically investigate a family of dilute Cu-based alloys to explore their viability as active and selective catalysts for eCO2R through a combined theoretical–experimental approach. Using a quantum–classical modeling approach that accounts for dynamic solvation effects, we assess the stability and activity of model single-atom catalysts under eCO2R conditions. Our calculations identify that the presence of eCO2R intermediates, such as CO*, H*, and OH*, may dynamically influence the local catalyst surface composition. Additionally, we identify through binding energy descriptors of the CO*, CHO*, and OCCO* dimer intermediates that certain elements, such as group 13 elements (B, Al, and Ga), enhance the selectivity of C2+ species relative to pure Cu by facilitating CO dimerization. The theoretical work is corroborated by preliminary testing of eCO2R activity and selectivity of candidate dilute Cu-based alloy catalyst films prepared by electron beam evaporation in a zero-gap gas diffusion electrode-based reactor. Of all studied alloys, dilute CuAl was found to be the most active and selective toward C2+ products like ethylene, consistent with the theoretical predictions. We attribute the improved performance of dilute CuAl alloys to more favorable dimerization reaction energetics of bound CO species relative to that on pure Cu. In a broader context, the results presented here demonstrate the power of our simulation framework in terms of rational catalyst design.

Scalable fabrication of high activity nanoporous copper powders for electrochemical CO2 reduction via ball milling and dealloying

Journal of CO2 Utilization · 2021-01-22 · 20 citations