Abstract:
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a major greenhouse gas which is driving the climate change. Electrochemical processes offer good reaction selectivity and reduced cost because of the possibility of direct control of electrode surface free energy through the electrode potential. Converting CO2 to valuable fuels and chemicals using electrochemical catalytic reduction (eCO2R) with renewable electricity has attracted growing interest aiming to reduce CO2 emission and energy security. With specific catalysts GDE eCO2RR demonstrated good selectivity with FE > 90% and overall one pass conversion >18% for C1 products were achieved. Multi-carbon products, C2 and C3, were synthesised with bi-metallic Cu-Ag prepared by electrochemical spontaneous deposition of Ag on Cu2O nanoparticles. From the density functional theory (DFT) analysis, Ag promotes Cu atoms migration towards the surface of the electrode, which seems to adsorb generated CO for the further reduction process to produce C2+ carbonaceous products. CuAg has shown some promising CO2 reduction with 60% FE corresponding to C2+ products.
Microbial electrosynthesis with microorganisms enriched from activated sludge, converting CO2 to acetate, C4 and C6 compounds, through Wood-Ljungdahl pathways. Integrated processes combining biological and electrochemical processes can provide a crucial route to achieve a sustainable, non-fossil fuel based chemical production with renewable energy. The system may be enhanced with photo-electrochemical process to achieve a sustainable, non-fossil fuel based chemical production for accomplishing Sustainable and Circular chemical Economy.
Bio:
Professor Eileen Yu holds a Chair of Chemical Engineering in the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Southampton. After obtaining her PhD from Newcastle University pioneering on the development of direct methanol alkaline fuel cells, she worked as a research fellow at Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems, Germany before she returned to Newcastle University to take a prestigious EPSRC Research Fellowship (Life Science Interface). This fellowship enabled her to extend her research into the biosciences, from which she has developed an interdisciplinary research profile.
She has a wide range of experience in various fields in electrochemical and bioelectrochemical systems for energy, environmental and biomedical applications. She has attracted funding from various funding organisations. Her current research includes understanding fundamentals and engineering applications of electrocatalysis and microbial electrosynthesis for CO2 utilisation, nitrogen fixation, resource recovery from wastes, bioremediation and environment monitoring with bioelectrochemical systems.
She is the Editor in Chief of Fuel Cells (Wiley), and Associate editor for Frontiers in Energy Research, Biosensors etc..