SBIR/STTR Award attributes
Solar driven carbon dioxide (CO2) conversion is promising to produce value- added products such as methanol and ethanol without using additional CO2 generating power sources. Presently, no suitable membranes exist for this application. Instead people use membranes designed for other applications, but these membranes show too much crossover to be used for commercial solar driven CO2 electrolysis to produce alcohols. Dioxide Materials already sells alkaline exchange membranes for use in CO2 electrolyzers. However, these membranes show higher alcohol (products from CO2 reduction) crossover than is needed for the solar driven CO2 electrolysis, so more development is needed. In the Phase I work, Dioxide Materials’ staff will modify the existing membranes, with the goal of reducing alcohol crossover by about one or two orders of magnitude. The membranes will then be tested in a simple solar driven CO2 electrolyzer to determine membrane performance. If this is successful, it will enable a Phase II effort where the membrane production is scaled so the membranes can be offered for sale and small solar driven CO2 electrolyzer can be built. Upon success, Dioxide Materials will be synthesizing and selling anion exchange membranes designed for the solar powered CO2 electrolysis, creating new jobs and revenues for U.S. manufacturers. It is also likely that we will be able to create and sell solar ethanol generators (manmade leaves) to enable solar fuels and chemicals production in locations not connected to the electrical grid.
