STTR Phase II: Earth-abundant catalyst for power-to-liquids chemical production at the kiloton scale

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project is to help lessen the environmental burden of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on fossil fuels. Climate change is an urgent environmental challenge and to address it, it is essential to provide alternatives to the use of fossil fuels that generate greenhouse gases. Nearly all the jet fuel or aviation fuel in use today is made from crude oil, which is a fossil fuel. This project provides an alternative technology that makes sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) using only carbon dioxide (CO2) captured from waste sources, relatively small volumes of water, and renewable (e.g., solar and wind) electricity. Catalysts are one of the key components of the process that is used to produce this SAF, helping the chemical reactions that produce the fuel occur more efficiently. This project will optimize the catalysts for improved production of SAF. This STTR Phase II project seeks to significantly improve SAF production by developing and characterizing catalysts that convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into the hydrocarbon constituents in sustainable aviation fuels using advanced characterization techniques such as x-ray diffraction, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and electron microscopy. The process will use catalysts as mimics for photosynthesis, taking air (as a CO2 source), water (as a hydrogen source) and sunlight (as an energy source) and converting them into sustainable chemicals and transportation fuels. The only by-products are oxygen and water. Many other related processes often rely on multiple reaction steps to target the same products. This project develops a novel family of proprietary catalysts to convert CO2 to fuels and chemicals in a single step via a direct CO2 hydrogenation process, enabling yields even greater than the theoretical maximum of legacy processes, such as Fischer-Tropsch. This new process eliminates the need for extra intermediate steps that negatively affect process energy demands, emissions, capital and operational cost, and product selling price. The successful outcome of the project will allow significant improvements in production and economics of sustainable aviation fuels. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.