LOUISIANA: LSU, Delaware to Develop Chemical Manufacturing Processes Using CO2 Feedstocks and Renewable Energy
Each day, many of the products we use, whether we know it or not, are produced from natural gas or crude oil using carbon- and energy-intensive processes. But what if we could make those same products using CO2, thereby drastically reducing or even eliminating our carbon footprint?
That is the ultimate goal of a project being conducted by researchers from LOUISIANA State University and the University of DELAWARE, thanks to a four-year, $4M grant from NSF EPSCoR.
“There has been a lot of progress in CO2 reduction over the last 15 years; we can now make valuable carbon products like ethanol and ethylene, and we can make them at high rates,” said John Flake, principal investigator on the project and chair of the LSU Cain Department of Chemical Engineering.
“The problems at this stage are more practical. For example, the electrolyzer materials need to last for years, and the energy efficiency needs to be improved. The goal of our project is to accelerate the work needed to make CO2 electrolyzers more durable and efficient. This could lead to industrial-scale CO2 electrolysis within a decade.”