Challenges in Electrifying Chemical Manufacturing

Abstract

Current processes used for the conversion of fossil fuel feedstock to fuels and other chemicals or intermediates as well as those used in chemical manufacturing in general tend to be highly carbon positive. These industries indeed are significant contributors to emission of excess carbon dioxide. Often this is the result of the use of fossil-fuel driven processes to yield the high temperatures and/or pressures needed to drive these processes, even in the presence of catalysts. Already, options to replace these energy-intense, carbon positive processes with less carbon positive processes is underway, for example the use of electricity driven processes.This presentation will explore the status of electrolytic processes for chemical conversion at scale. Significant progress has been made in the electrochemical manufacturing of intermediates of key importance to the chemical industry (e.g., H2, CO, ethylene, ethanol, acetate, ...) using renewable feedstocks such as water and CO2. While electrocatalysts with reasonable activity and selectivity for these intermediates have been developed or are still being developed, several challenges still remain in the desired translation of these electrocatalytic conversion approaches to scalable electrochemical processes. This presentation will review issues and progress regarding a number aspects: (1) electrode durability, how to mitigate electrode degradation processes; (2) scalability of electrolysis cell designs; (3) opportunities for co-conversion, producing value-added products at both electrodes; (4) techno-economic and life cycle assessment of new electrochemical approaches to chemical manufacturing. Furthermore, the presentation will elaborate on associated challenges and needs, such as (i) the variability in composition of many renewable feedstocks (e.g., CO2 from different industrial plants, bio-derived substrates); and (ii) the need for new separations approaches, ideally renewable energy driven, able to purify the new/different product streams from the electrolytic chemical manufacturing processes.