Novel Polymer-electrolyte Membrane Development for Carbon Dioxide Conversion to Solar Fuel

Sustainable fuels and chemicals production is necessary for the future of the global economy. Opus 12 has developed an electrochemical process to convert CO2 into solar chemicals and fuels. Key to our process is a new polymer-electrolyte membrane design that enables CO2 electroreduction in existing a polymer-electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolyzer hardware. PEM electrolyzers are ideal for coupling to intermittent solar power because they can ramp up and down quickly without performance degradation. Use of this industrially-proven electrochemical reactor design to perform this CO2 conversion gives us a clear pathway to manufacturability and scalability. Through a Phase I award, we aim to further improve our membrane formulation to achieve performance efficiency and selectivity needed to compete with existing chemical and fuels production processes at the large scale. We will work with Prof. Chulsung Bae at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to incorporate his new, high-performance polymer-electrolytes into our membranes. Hitting our Phase I targets would allow us to scale up to a larger CO2 conversion system in Phase II. Utilizing increasingly low-cost and abundant solar electricity to make solar fuels and chemicals could decrease costs, reduce air pollution, and create new jobs in regions with few opportunities by distributing production of these materials.