Ethylene is an important chemical worldwide, but the traditional steam-cracking process to produce it emits large amounts of carbon dioxide.
Engineers at the University of Cincinnati in the US have found an economical and efficient way to convert carbon dioxide into valuable products to combat climate change .
The research said that at the Chemical Engineering Lab of the University of Cincinnati (UC), Associate Professor Jingji Wu and his team have electrochemically transformed carbon dioxide into ethylene with the help of a modified copper catalyst.
Ethylene has been considered the most important chemical in the world . It’s certainly one of the most produced chemicals, used in everything from textiles, antifreeze, to vinyl. The chemical industry produced 225 million metric tons of ethylene in 2022.
Quoting research, Wu said that this process produces ethylene through green energy instead of fossil fuels. It also has the additional benefit of removing carbon from the atmosphere.
Ethylene is an important chemical worldwide, but the traditional steam-cracking process to produce it emits large amounts of carbon dioxide, according to research published in the journal Nature Chemical Engineering .
The research states that instead of relying on fossil fuels, carbon dioxide can be effectively recycled by using carbon dioxide as a feedstock.
Let us tell you here that the raw material used to supply or fuel a machine or industrial process is known as feedstock.
Electrocatalytic conversion of carbon dioxide produces the first organic products, ethylene and ethanol. The researchers found that using a modified copper catalyst produced more ethylene.
“Our research provides important information on the differences between ethylene and ethanol during electrochemical CO2 reduction,” said lead researcher Li.
This increases ethylene by 50 percent, Wu said. He further said that our aim is to produce a single product instead of multiple products.
Lee said the next step is to make the process more commercially efficient. After some time the system for converting ethylene loses efficiency as other reaction products such as potassium hydroxide begin to form on the copper catalyst.
The electrode stability must be improved for commercial use, Li said. Our next goal is to increase the stability and extend its operation from 1,000 to 1,00,000 hours.
Wu said these new technologies will help make the chemical industry greener and more energy efficient.
Our main objective is to decarbonize chemical production using renewable electricity and sustainable feedstock, Wu said. Electrifying carbon dioxide into ethylene can be seen as an important advance in decarbonizing the chemical sector.
