Comparative Study on Electrochemical and Thermochemical Pathways for Carbonaceous Fuel Generation Using Sunlight and Air
- Creators
- Xu, Da
- Sullivan, Ian
- Xiang, Chengxiang
- Lin, Meng
Abstract
A comparative study on the solar-to-fuel (STF) conversion efficiency of electrochemical and thermochemical approaches for methane (CH₄), methanol (MeOH), and ethanol (EtOH) generation using sunlight and air was performed. The system level STF conversion efficiency studied herein took into account of both the conversion processes and feedstock capture processes. In particular, the feedstock, CO₂ and H₂O, in this analysis were assumed to be captured from air. For thermochemical conversion, one and two-step approaches were considered including CH₄ generation from the Sabatier reaction, and two-step processes for methanol (MeOH) and ethanol (EtOH) generation from CO and H₂ coupled with the reverse water gas shift reaction (rWGS). State-of-the-art electrochemical and hybrid electrochemical-thermochemical processes for CH₄, MeOH and EtOH generation, and the corresponding system level STF conversion efficiency were then compared and contrasted to the thermochemical approaches. Target overpotentials and Faradaic efficiency (FE) for the electrochemical CO₂ reduction reactions was also presented to compete with thermochemical approaches at different operating scenarios.
Additional Information
This material is based on work performed by the Liquid Sunlight Alliance, which is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, and Fuels from Sunlight Hub under Award Number DE-SC0021266. M.L. and D.X. acknowledge the support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 52006097. The computation in this work is supported by Center for Computational Science and Engineering at Southern University of Science and Technology.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 117673
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20221031-575730600.41
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- 52006097
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- DE-SC0021266
- Created
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2022-11-08Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2022-11-08Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Liquid Sunlight Alliance