Electrolytic cell engineering and device optimization for electrosynthesis of e-biofuels via co-valorisation of bio-feedstocks and captured CO₂

Abstract

Utilizing CO₂ in an electro-chemical process and synthesizing value-added chemicals are amongst the few viable and scalable pathways in carbon capture and utilization technologies. CO₂ electro-reduction is also counted as one of the main options entailing less fossil fuel consumption and as a future electrical energy storage strategy. The current study aims at developing a new electrochemical platform to produce low-carbon e-biofuel through multifunctional electrosynthesis and integrated co-valorisation of biomass feedstocks with captured CO₂. In this approach, CO₂ is reduced at the cathode to produce drop-in fuels (e.g., methanol) while value-added chemicals (e.g., selective oxidation of alcohols, aldehydes, carboxylic acids and amines/amides) are produced at the anode. In this work, a numerical model of a continuous-flow design considering various anodic and cathodic reactions was built to determine the most techno-economically feasible configurations from the aspects of energy efficiency, environment impact and economical values. The reactor design was then optimized via parametric analysis.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

electrosynthesis / e-biofuels / CO₂ utilization / computational model

References

[1] Zsiborács H, Baranyai N H, Vincze A, Zentkó L, Birkner Z, Máté K, Pintér G. Intermittent renewable energy sources: The role of energy storage in the european power system of 2040. Electronics (Basel), 2019, 8(7): 729

[2] Dadhich P, Dooley J, Fujii Y, Hohmeyer O, Riahi K. Cost and economic potential. IPCC Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture Storage, 2005: 341–362

[3] Pérez-Fortes M, Schöneberger J C, Boulamanti A, Harrison G, Tzimas E. Formic acid synthesis using CO₂ as raw material: Techno-economic and environmental evaluation and market potential. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 2016, 41(37): 16444–16462

[4] Verma S, Lu S, Kenis P J A. Co-electrolysis of CO₂ and glycerol as a pathway to carbon chemicals with improved technoeconomics due to low electricity consumption. Nature Energy, 2019, 4(6): 466–474

[5] Das S, Balaraju T, Barman S, Sreejith S S, Pochamoni R, Roy S. A molecular CO₂ reduction catalyst based on giant polyoxometalate Mo368. Frontiers in Chemistry, 2018, 6: 514

[6] Liu Z, Yang H, Kutz R, Masel R I. CO₂ electrolysis to CO and O₂ at high selectivity, stability and efficiency using sustainion membranes. Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 2018, 165(15): J3371–J3377

[7] Kaczur J J, Yang H, Liu Z, Sajjad S D, Masel R I. Carbon dioxide and water electrolysis using new alkaline stable anion membranes. Frontiers in Chemistry, 2018, 6: 1–16

[8] Lu J, Zhu C, Pan C, Lin W, Lemmon J P, Chen F, Li C and Xie K. Highly efficient electrochemical reforming of CH₄/CO₂ in a solid oxide electrolyser. Science Advances, 2018, 4(3): eaar5100

[9] Li Y C, Lee G, Yuan T, Wang Y, Nam D H, Wang Z, García de Arquer F P, Lum Y, Dinh C T, Voznyy O, Sargent E H. CO₂ electroreduction from carbonate electrolyte. ACS Energy Letters, 2019, 4(6): 1427–1431

[10] Wang L, Chen M, Küngas R, Lin T E, Diethelm S, Maréchal F, Van herle J. Power-to-fuels via solid-oxide electrolyzer: Operating window and techno-economics. Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2019, 110: 174–187

[11] Wang L, Pérez-Fortes M, Madi H, Diethelm S, herle J V, Maréchal F. Optimal design of solid-oxide electrolyzer based power-to-methane systems: A comprehensive comparison between steam electrolysis and co-electrolysis. Applied Energy, 2018, 211: 1060–1079

[12] Tatin A, Comminges C, Kokoh B, Costentin C, Robert M, Savéant J M. Efficient electrolyzer for CO₂ splitting in neutral water using earth-abundant materials. Proceeding of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America, 2016, 113 (20): 5526–5529

[13] Larrazábal G O, Martín A J, Pérez-Ramírez J. Building blocks for high performance in electrocatalytic CO₂ reduction: Materials, optimization strategies, and device engineering. Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 2017, 8(16): 3933–3944

[14] Lukaszewski M, Soszko M, Czerwiński A. Electrochemical methods of real surface area determination of noble metal electrodes—an overview. International Journal of Electrochemical Science, 2016, 11(6): 4442–4469

[15] Li X, Angelidaki I, Zhang Y. Salinity-gradient energy driven microbial electrosynthesis of value-added chemicals from CO₂ reduction. Water Research, 2018, 142: 396–404

[16] Conway B E, Dzieciuch M. New approaches to the Study of electrochemical decarboxylation and the Kolbe reaction: Part I. The model reaction with formate. Canadian Journal of Chemistry, 2011, 41(1): 21–37

[17] Bockris J O. Modern Aspects of Electrochemistry. No. 4, 1st ed. Berlin: Springer, 1966, 1–46

[18] Hicks M T, Fedkiw P S. A model for Kolbe electrolysis in a parallel plate reactor. Journal of Applied Electrochemistry, 1998, 28(11): 1157–1166

[19] Li Y, Khanal S K. Bioenergy: Principles and Applications. 1st ed. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016, 1–600

[20] Verma S, Lu S, Kenis P J A. Co-electrolysis of CO₂ and glycerol as a pathway to carbon chemicals with improved technoeconomics due to low electricity consumption. Nature Energy, 2019, 4(6): 466–474

[21] Li T, Cao Y, He J, Berlinguette C P. Electrolytic CO₂ reduction in tandem with oxidative organic chemistry. ACS Central Science, 2017, 3(7): 778–783

[22] Latsuzbaia R, Bisselink R, Anastasopol A, van der Meer H, van Heck R, Segurola Yagüe M, Zijlstra M, Roelands M, Crockatt M, Goetheer E, . Continuous electrochemical oxidation of biomass derived 5- (hydroxymethyl) furfural into 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid. Journal of Applied Electrochemistry, 2018, 48(6): 611–626

[23] Kubota S R, Choi K. Electrochemical oxidation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural to 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) in acidic media enabling spontaneous FDCA separation. ChemSusChem, 2018, 11(13): 2138–2145

[24] Liu W, Dang L, Xu Z, Yu H, Jin S, Huber G W. Electrochemical oxidation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural with NiFe layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanosheet catalysts. ACS Catalysis, 2018, 8(6): 5533–5541

[25] Hampson N A, Lee J B, MacDonald K I. The oxidation of amino compounds at anodic silver. Electrochimica Acta, 1972, 17(5): 921–955

[26] Fuchigami T, Atobe M, Inagi S. Examples of Organic Electrosynthesis. Fundamentals and Applications of Organic Electrochemistry. 1st ed. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2014, 209–216

[27] Krumgalz B S, Barthel J G M. Conductivity study of electrolyte solutions in dimethylformamide at various temperatures. Zeitschrift für Physikalische Chemie (Leipzig), 1984, 142(2): 167–178

[28] Yaws C L. The Yaws Handbook of Physical Properties for Hydrocarbons and Chemicals. 2nd ed. Oxford: Gulf Professional Publishing, 2015, 10–812

[29] Shono T, Matsumura Y, Tsubata K. Anodic oxidation of N-carbomethoxypyrrolidine: 2-methoxy-N-carbomethoxypyrrolidine. Organic Syntheses. 1st ed. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2003

[30] Fritz H P. Electrochemical anodic of naphtaline and l and 2-methoxynaphtaline. Electrochimica Acta, 1976, 2: 1099–1100

[31] Shono T, Ikeda A. Electroorganic Chemistry. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 1972, 94(22): 7892–7898

[32] Gallardo I, Guirado G, Marquet J. Nucleophilic. Aromatic substitution of hydrogen: A novel electrochemical approach to the cyanation of nitroarenes. ChemInform, 2010, 33(13): 1759–1765

[33] Rumble J. CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. 95th ed. Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2014, 1118–1512

[34] Pang S C, Chin S F, Anderson M A. Redox equilibria of iron oxides in aqueous-based magnetite dispersions: Effect of pH and redox potential. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 2007, 311(1): 94–101

[35] COMSOL Multiphysics®, v 5.4. Stockholm: COMSOL AB, 2019

[36] Wang H, Leung D Y C, Xuan J. Modeling of a microfluidic electrochemical cell for CO₂ utilization and fuel production. Applied Energy, 2013, 102: 1057–1062

[37] Rosenqvist T, Haugom J. Gibbs energy of formation of SO₂. Journal of the Chemical Society, Faraday Transaction 1. Physical Chemistry in Condensed Phases, 1976, 21(12): 1649–1654

[38] Baker D. General Chemistry. 5th ed. (Ebbing, Darrell D.). Journal of Chemical Education, 1997, 74(9):1049

[39] Faria R P V, Pereira C S M, Silva V M T M, Loureiro J M, Rodrigues A E. Glycerol valorization as biofuel: Thermodynamic and kinetic study of the acetalization of glycerol with acetaldehyde. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 2013, 52(4): 1538–1547

[40] Stephanopoulos G N, Aristidou A A, Nielsen J. Thermodynamics of Cellular Processes. 1st ed. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1998, 629–694

[41] Ahmad Z. Principles of Corrosion Engineering and Corrosion Control. 1st ed. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2006, 217–218

[42] Goldstein R J, Kreid D K. Measurement of laminar flow development in a square duct using a laser-doppler flowmeter. Journal of Applied Mechanics, Transactions ASME, 1964, 34(4): 813–818

[43] Whipple D T, Finke E C, Kenis P J A. Microfluidic reactor for the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide: The effect of pH. Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters, 2010, 13(9): B109

[44] Sheldon R A. The E-factor: Fifteen years on. Green Chemistry, 2007, 9(12): 1273–1283

Acknowledgements

This work is jointly supported by the UK Supergen Bioenergy Hub and the Department for Transport via grant number SGBH FF Feb2019 1.

Open Access

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2020 The Author(s) 2020. This article is published with open access at link.springer.com and journal.hep.com.cn