DuBois, Daniel L., Calvin J. Curtis, William W. Ellis, Alex Miedaner, Jeffery W. Turner. PRODUCTION OF RENEWABLE CHEMICALS AND FUELS FROM CO2 VIA ELECTROCHEMICAL PATHWAYS Basic Sciences Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 1617 Cole Blvd., Golden, CO 80401-3393 (dan_dubois@nrel.gov)
The conversion of excess intermittent electrical energy from solar cells or wind turbines coupled with electrochemical CO2 reduction could provide a future route to renewable fuels and chemicals. CO2 directly from the atmosphere and new efficient electrocatalysts for CO2 reduction. The formation and cleavage of C-O and C-H bonds are crucial to both CO2 recovery and CO2 reduction. Recent progress in our laboratory on understanding these fundamental bond-making and bond-breaking processes will be described.