(503e) Engineering Processes and Materials for Downstream Purification of Products of Electrochemical CO2 Reduction for an Ethylene Producing e-Refinery

Rising CO₂ emissions are driving significant investments in low-carbon and zero-carbon fuel production strategies. Decreases in renewable electricity costs have focused attention on materials and technologies to electrochemically reduce CO₂ into small molecules such as C₂ hydrocarbons. While there has been significant research on the electrochemical cell design and reactors for the system, there have been few studies, however, on the separation systems that will be eventually required to supplement the system. The presented work aims at strategically developing downstream separation process flows which significantly improve the overall conversion of CO₂ in these reactions without changing the reactor. Further, we identified major bottlenecks in adsorption-based separation processes. The presented work includes discovery and development of metal organic frameworks for these separations to further improve energy requirements in the downstream refining.