Electrosynthesis of ethylene from CO₂-derived syngas using nanostructure Cu-based catalysts

SSRN

December 2022

Ethylene production through carbon recycling presents a sustainable alternative to the petrochemical process provided that Power-to-X (PtX) technologies are improved. This paper highlights new advances in catalysts and reactor designs for PtX, such as Faradaic efficiency, current density, and stability of operation moving this technology closer to industrial benchmarks. Tandem electrosynthesis of ethylene from CO₂ (i.e., CO₂-CO-C₂H₄) has shown more benefits and is more sustainable than the single-step process (i.e., CO₂-to- C₂H₄) because the former process shows less loss of CO₂-to-carbonate, lower overpotential, higher product selectivity and thus, higher overall efficiency. However, the use of syngas (i.e. CO and H₂) to produce ethylene – the most important building block for a vast range of polymers – has not been studied extensively. Hence, this study focuses on the development of electro-synthetic ethylene from syngas in giga-tonne scale, which could achieve carbon neutrality in terms of energy consumption if combined with a suitable solar powered energy source.