Carbon Neutral Liquid Fuel Production

Much U.S. power generation comes from power plants using coal or natural gas. As the nation¿s energy consumption continues to rise, carbon dioxide emission increasingly becomes an issue that needs to be dealt with. Although recent focus has been on sequestration of carbon dioxide, that process consumes about 10% of the energy produced from the power plant. An energy efficient alternative would be to recycle the carbon dioxide into useful products. This project will evaluate an efficient electrolysis process for converting carbon dioxide into valuable chemicals. Various operational scenarios will be evaluated in Phase I to determine the process and economic feasibility. This will be followed by a prototype reactor demonstration for carbon dioxide conversion in Phase II, in which several electrochemical stacks will be tested under various operating conditions to electrolyze carbon dioxide to produce value added chemicals. The experimental and process modeling data will be used to evaluate the process and economic feasibility. Commercial Applications and other Benefits as described by the awardee: The project should result in the synthesis of a chemical intermediary that can be readily converted into liquid or gaseous fuels, using existing commercial processes. Such synthetic fuels from carbon dioxide will result in net decreased emissions.