Global warming presents an ever-rising challenge to humans today, caused by an unprecedented rise in the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere over the past decade. This study proposes a way to fix this problem in a sustainable way using sunlight to convert CO 2 into useful fuels through a novel device. A Simulink model of photo-voltaic cell, CO 2 electrochemical reduction and photoelectrochemical reduction cell is developed and integrated together to model the device. The photo-voltaic cell model takes solar irradiation and temperature as inputs, giving electrical power as output. The CO 2 electrochemical reduction cell model consists of three blocks, anode, cathode and voltage. Mole balances on anode and cathode give the product flow-rates. Nernst and Butler-Volmer equations calculate the voltage required to operate the CO 2 reduction cell. The CO 2 photo-electrochemical reduction cell calculates product flow rates and voltage required to operate the cell using continuity, charge balance and Butler-Volmer equations. The model of the integrated device calculates i-V characteristics of the photovoltaic, electrochemical reduction and photo-electrochemical reduction cell under different environmental conditions, the product flow rates, contribution of various cell over-voltages. The model developed predicts photo-electrochemical route to be more energy and area efficient as compared to the electrochemical route. With the fast depletion of non-renewable energy sources e.g., fossil fuels and environmental pollution caused by their combustion, there is not only an increasing need to look for alternative sources of energy but also fix the disproportionately harmful amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide forms a major portion of greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for global warming. It is released into the atmosphere by natural and man-made causes, with emissions from human activities being 100 times greater than those from natural causes. Increasingly, there are efforts to consider carbon dioxide as a resource for commercial opportunity rather than a waste by incurring a low cost of disposal.1,2,3 Commercially viable and pure CO 2 is available from current and future plants for carbon sequestration and storage (CSS).3 Moreover, chemical recycling of carbon dioxide is gaining importance as CSS option is unavailable for many emission sites and also, in cases where concentration of carbon dioxide in emissions is dilute, and hence, commercially inviable for CCS. About 5-10% of worldwide CO 2 emissions, which were approximately 46 Gt in 2016, could find potential use in the production of fuels and chemicals. This is one order of magnitude higher than present use of CO 2 in industry. 4 Currently, carbon dioxide is put to use in the production of urea, methanol, metal carbonates, bi-carbonates and plastics.5 Converting CO 2 to fuels offers better economic advantage owing to their greater market demand and high prices. Certain fuels like methanol, ethanol can also serve as feedstock for fuel cells p...
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