Solid Oxide Electrolysis (SOE) for carbon dioxide utilisation

IDRIC Project MIP 5.3

University of St Andrews
ceres
Imperial College London

Background

Whilst the utilisation of coal and other fossil fuels to generate electricity is rapidly diminishing and advances are being made in the decarbonisation of transport, there are several important industrial sources of CO2 that continue to emit CO2 that cannot be easily abated without harming societal well-being.

Key examples are cement and steel manufacture. These are essential to the UK economy and have global impact. Here we seek to utilise produced CO2 to provide valuable, carbon neutral products. This not only addresses climate change, but also adds commercial value.

Here, we seek to develop materials for CO2 electrolysis, basing this upon prior successes utilising Mn doped perovskites and exsolution chemistry. Key parameters are low electrochemical losses and resistance to coking in higher carbon containing atmospheres. This will entail materials and electrochemical studies, synthesising and characterising new target compositions, fabricating cells and evaluating electrochemical properties in relation to produced gases.

Prof John Irvine

Prof John TS Irvine

Principal Investigator
University of St Andrews

Project Team

University of St Andrews:

Nuoxi Zhang

Aim

We will focus upon co-electrolysis of CO2 and steam seeking to develop efficient systems to produce synthesis gas without risk of coking. Three tasks will be pursued: 

  • Development of coking resistant SOE materials sets for components and electrolytes. 
  • System modelling to develop effective modular SOE systems probing different design concepts 
  • Characterisation of COSolid Electrolysis at Scale performing coupon level tests in the large scale SOE test rig. 

More Detail

Experimental
• La0.4Ca0.4 TiO3 and La0.43Ca0.37M? Ti1-?O3-γ (M = Ni0.05, Ni0.10, Ni0.05Mn0.05) powders were prepared by the solid-state reaction.
• XRD, SEM and TEM were utilized to characterize the exsolved nanoparticles.
• TGA was used to investigate the influence of different B-site doping on the number of oxygen vacancies formed.

Meet the Team

 

Team 1

Nuoxi Zhang

University of St Andrews

 

Team 1

Nuoxi Zhang

University of St Andrews