Carbon dioxide utilisation via electrocatalytic processes

Start date: September 2017

Recycling carbon dioxide to form fuel gives the potential for a carbon neutral fuel cycle – reducing net CO2 emissions and reducing dependence on fossil fuels. Electrolysis using a solid oxide cell has been shown to be an effective way of co-reducing CO2 and H2O to form syngas, the precursor for synthetic fuels. Whilst much research has been done on co-electrolysis in recent years, there still remain significant gaps in the understanding of fundamental reaction mechanisms and operating regimes to reduce degradation and extend lifetime. These need to be answered in order for co-electrolysis to reach large scale commercialisation. This project aims to optimise operating conditions and regimes to efficiently produce desirable concentrations of syngas.
The project is mainly experimental and the student will be part of an enthusiastic team of researchers working in the field. Experiments will be conducted using high temperature electrolysis rigs to investigate variables such as temperature and concentration and regimes such as reversible operation and voltage pulsing.