Feng Jiao, The Robert Grasselli Development Professor
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
and
Director of the Center for Catalytic Science & Technology
University of Delaware

Electrocatalysis for Carbon Dioxide Utilization

Abstract: Our society is facing the climate change and global warming challenges caused by the ever-increasing CO2 level in our atmosphere. Reducing the CO2 emission becomes a critical mission for us to fight for the sustainable future. In traditional chemical industries, most processes are driven by fossil sources, which inevitably emits a large quantity of CO2. Recently, electrochemical processes attracted attentions as they could be more environmentally friendly with a much smaller carbon footprint if powered by renewable electricity. Our research group currently focuses on the development of CO2 electrolysis devices that convert CO2 into value-added chemicals and fuels through innovations in electrocatalyst design and reactor engineering. In this talk, we will present our recent work related to a two-step tandem CO2 electrolysis system, which allows us to achieve an acetate selectivity as high as 55% at high purities and concentrations. The ability to convert CO2 into acetate made it possible to create an electrochemical-biological hybrid approach to produce foods from CO2 with a much higher efficiency than nature’s photosynthetic pathways. Additionally, we conducted a detailed techno-economic assessment of major CO2 reduction products to provide guidelines to future research and development of ambient temperature CO2 electrolysis technologies. Read more here.