The Potential for Electrons to Molecules Using Solar Energy

Abstract

Department of Energy (DOE) reports produced after 1991 and a growing number of pre-1991 documents are available free via www.OSTI.gov.

Modeling diurnal and annual ethylene generation from solar-driven electrochemical CO2 reduction devices

“…44 Solar-driven CO 2 R offers a pathway to decarbonizing the ethylene industry and to long-term storage of solar energy in molecular form. 45 For Cu-based electrochemical CO 2 R, numerous methods exist to steer selectivity and activity, including electrocatalytic methods such as catalyst morphology, loading, and chemical composition (e.g., oxides) and electrolyte-derived methods such as pH, flow rate, and electrolyte composition. [15][16][17][46][47][48][49][50][51] Each of these methods can be used to alter the electrochemical (EC) polarization curve, thereby changing the device operating point, which corresponds to the intersection between the EC polarization curve (current vs. voltage) and PV polarization curve (current vs. voltage) (Fig.…”

Progress and development of syngas fermentation processes toward commercial bioethanol production

“…110 LanzaTech is collaborating with the United States Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to produce aviation fuels using syngas fermentation, then converting the produced ethanol into jet fuel through catalytic conversion. 103,111 Shougang Group, a renowned Chinese steel maker, has partnered with LanzaTech to launch a commercial facility that converts industrial emissions to 100 000 gal per year of ethanol from steel mill off gases. 103,111…”

“…103,111 Shougang Group, a renowned Chinese steel maker, has partnered with LanzaTech to launch a commercial facility that converts industrial emissions to 100 000 gal per year of ethanol from steel mill off gases. 103,111…”

Continuous multimodal technologies in industrial microbiology: potential for achieving high process performance and agility

“…Syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, is a promising substrate to produce chemicals and fuels, including ethanol. It can be efficiently produced via reverse water-gas shift and water electrolysis (Badgett et al, 2021). In addition, technologies such as solar-driven electrolysis (Schmidt et al, 2017), supercritical water (scH 2 O) gasification (Okolie et al, 2019), and biomass pyrolysis-gasification (Dou et al, 2019) further enable the sustainable production of molecular hydrogen (H 2 ).…”

“…The second route is the production of ethanol from syngas fermentation, which was reported to be at commercial scale by a joint venture between LanzaTech and Shougang Group. The reported feed gas composition in molar ratio is 5:1:1 for H 2 :CO : CO 2 in syngas fermentation for ethanol production (Huang et al, 2020;Badgett et al, 2021;Lee et al, 2021). In the product of ethanol, half of the moles of carbon were assumed to be from CO, and the other half from CO 2 (Huang et al, 2020).…”