Electrochemical Systems for Production of Syngas and Co-Products

This paper describes the development of bench-scale systems for the electrochemical reduction of CO2 to synthesis gas (syngas). Syngas is a significant building block chemical currently derived from fossil energy. Conventional methods create syngas using fossil resources which releases carbon into the atmosphere. Electrochemical reduction of CO2 is a process that could integrate intermittent alternative energy sources into the electric grid by using excess electricity to convert CO2 and H2O to a useful product. The paper describes applied electrochemical development of systems to reduce CO2 and H2O using technical data from previous work. This paper will describe three developed processes: 1) ambient pressure production of syn-gas, 2) pressurized CO2 reduction and 3) Cl2 and syngas co-production.