SBIR Phase I: Onsite production of CO from carbon dioxide using modified PEM Electolyzers

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is aimed at developing a new CO2 utilization technology to recycle carbon dioxide back into fuels and chemicals. By utilizing CO2 as a feedstock instead of fossil fuels, this technology could reduce U.S. industry?s dependence on imported energy and reduce the nation?s greenhouse gas emissions. By commercializing the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide, revenue could be generated from industrial emissions, which are currently discarded as waste. This project could lead to the generation of new U.S. advanced manufacturing jobs in order to build electrolysis equipment. The initial application of the technology is the production of carbon monoxide from CO2. Carbon monoxide is a valuable synthesis gas for producing specialty chemicals, and at the large scale, it can be used to synthesize transportation fuels. By scaling up electrochemical CO2 reduction technology, the commercialization of the project innovation would broadly promote CO2 utilization and decrease the nation?s total CO2 emissions from industry. The key barrier to the widespread deployment of electrochemical carbon dioxide utilization technology has been the lack of an electrolyzer design capable CO2 reduction with high production rates and high energy efficiency. This project will use a novel reactor design to carry out the conversion of CO2 to CO. The specific reactor design in this project has high energy efficiency and high reaction rates necessary to make the process of CO2 utilization cost competitive. There are other advantages to the proposed electrolyzer design: years of optimization have lowered capital costs, and it is modular and scalable. By utilizing an existing reactor design, it will be possible to scale CO2 conversion quickly to reach larger markets and decrease emissions through the use of CO2. The goal of this project is to prove the feasibility of cost-competitive CO2 reduction in the proposed reactor design. Rapid iteration and testing will be used to determine whether key performance indicators can be achieved.