| NSF Org: |
TI Translational Impacts |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | April 23, 2021 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | April 23, 2021 |
| Award Number: | 2052174 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Rajesh Mehta
rmehta@nsf.gov (703)292-2174 TI Translational Impacts TIP Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships |
| Start Date: | May 1, 2021 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2022 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $255,948.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $255,948.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1600 HURON PKWY ANN ARBOR MI US 48109-5001 (734)717-8247 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
1600 Huron Parkway Ann Arbor MI US 48109-5001 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | STTR Phase I |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.084 |
ABSTRACT
The broader impact/commercial potential of this STTR Phase I project is in reducing carbon dioxide emissions while delivering a sustainable solution to meet the global demand for green fuels and chemicals. Carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas linked to climate change and environmental concerns. Solutions to sequester carbon dioxide underground and in deep oceans are expensive, and the long-term effectiveness, safety, and associated environmental impacts are unclear. This project allows highly efficient conversion of carbon dioxide into valuable green products using only renewable solar energy. The cost-effective, sustainable production of green fuels utilizing carbon dioxide as a feedstock will be key to reducing emissions and lowering dependency on fossil-based sources. Low-cost green fuels, such as methane, are expected to accelerate the penetration of a $30 billion market for the transportation and power generation sectors.
This project addresses the fact that the high stability of carbon dioxide and conventional approaches to convert these molecules involve high temperature, high pressure, and/or extremely reactive reagents, rendering them expensive and harmful to the environment. Artificial photosynthesis is a promising approach to convert carbon dioxide and water into commercially valuable chemical products, such as methane, methanol, formic acid and syngas, using only solar energy. This project will assess the technical feasibility of a revolutionary artificial photosynthesis system based on photocatalyst wafers prepared using magnetron sputter epitaxy (MSE) to generate green methane from carbon dioxide in a single step. The proposed project utilizes low-cost, scalable processes to prepare photocatalyst wafers with high efficiencies and stabilities that can be extrapolated to 20+ years of operation lifetime. The key challenge is to effectively combine the novel carbon dioxide reduction functionality with the unique light harvesting and water oxidation platform, and optimize the operating parameters to enhance the overall system efficiency and robustness. The goal is to demonstrate photocatalyst wafers with 10+% solar to fuel efficiencies, unprecedented long-term stability in the carbon dioxide reduction process, and a bench-scale prototype for performance validation.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
More than 35 gigatons of greenhouse gases (GHG) including CO2 are emitted into the environment annually due to human activity including transportation, refining and power generation. With growing evidence linking CO2 with disruptive climate change, and predictions that CO2 emissions will double in the next 50 years, scalable remediation of CO2 has been identified as one of the global grand challenges that need to be addressed within this century. Accordingly, regulations in the form of carbon tax and pricing are being employed globally to actively seek and implement effective carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies to their existing processes and/or displace them with greener options. Yet, no CCUS solutions are currently available that are cost-effective and scalable to critically drive the timely shift to a sustainable, carbon-neutral economy.
NX Fuels is commercializing our transformative technology based on artificial photosynthesis that can efficiently convert CO2 into green fuels and chemicals (e.g., methanol, syngas, methane, formic acid, etc.) in a single step using only solar energy. The key challenge of this approach is combining water splitting (water oxidation) and CO2 reduction reaction in a single step while achieving high solar to fuel efficiency, photocatalyst stability and product selectivity (Figure 1). Upon completion of the Phase I from NSF we have confirmed the technical feasibility of using low-cost deposition processes (sputtering and etching) and demonstrated a bench scale prototype for the solar methanol production from CO2 and water. With optimization, our STF efficiency is expected to exceed that of the conventional approaches by a factor of 4-5 at comparable costs.
Last Modified: 09/13/2022
Modified by: Saemin Choi
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