TWELVE BENEFIT CORPORATION — Department of Energy SBIR Phase I: 18

Description

Utilization of waste carbon dioxide, a holy grail of green chemistry, could provide an additional income stream for CO2 emitting industries and reduce the amount of greenhouse gas released into the air. An efficient, cost-effective, and modular reactor for electrochemical reduction of CO2 (ECO2R) to high-volume fuels and chemicals is needed to make this a reality. Using only water and electricity as inputs, ECO2R has been demonstrated to produce over 16 different fuels and chemicals, but state-of-the-art conversion efficiencies are low and limited to non-economic scientific reactor designs. The proposed effort aims to show the commercial viability of our technology by testing various concentrations of CO2 through our prototype reactor. By simulating flue gas conditions we can determine what, if any, flue gas purification steps will be required on the front end of our commercial-scale reactor. Phase I will support the development of a testing platform for inputting various containments and concentrations of CO2 into our reactor as proof that our reactor can operate in the presence of known contaminants. Phase II will support the creation of our first pilot unit, which will form the basis for commercialization. Keywords: Carbon dioxide utilization, flue gas streams, renewable fuels and chemicals, protonexchange membrane electrolyzer