Prospective Life Cycle Assessment Bridging Biochemical, Thermochemical, and Electrochemical CO2 Reduction toward Sustainable Ethanol Synthesis,ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering

当前位置： X-MOL 学术 › ACS Sustain. Chem. Eng. › 论文详情

Our official English website, www.x-mol.net, welcomes your feedback! (Note: you will need to create a separate account there.)

Prospective Life Cycle Assessment Bridging Biochemical, Thermochemical, and Electrochemical CO2 Reduction toward Sustainable Ethanol Synthesis
ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering ( IF 7.1 ) Pub Date : 2023-03-30 , DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.3c00842
Wuwei Mo _{1,

2,

3} , Xin-Quan Tan _{1,

2} , Wee-Jun Ong _{1,

2,

4,

5,

6}

Affiliation

Faced by the concerning climate change worldwide and agriculture-dependent biochemical and energy-intensive thermochemical technologies, research and development efforts in exploring sustainable ethanol synthesis toward carbon neutrality are urgent. Recently, an electrochemical process via the electrocatalytic CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂RR) to synthesize ethanol has emerged as a promising alternative approach by directly consuming CO₂ from the atmosphere. Despite the fact that numerous remarkable electrocatalysts with fascinating activity, selectivity, and stability have been extensively uncovered in this field, environmental impacts of this technology have rarely been acknowledged. Herein, a life cycle assessment (LCA) study is conducted to evaluate the potential environmental impacts and benefits of an innovative electrochemical process versus conventional biochemical and thermochemical processes toward the sustainable synthesis of 1 kg of ethanol. Impact assessment results revealed that with the contemporary electricity mix, the electrochemical process is still surpassed by the biochemical process, and its environmental benignity is not pronounced, attributed to tremendous electricity utilities accounting for 67.7–100% of impacts. However, it prevails over the two conventional routes when powered by renewable energies, particularly solar energy, with impact reduction ranging from 108.6 to 750.5%, while providing the greatest benefits with respect to terrestrial ecotoxicity (TETP). Carbon footprint further indicates that the electrochemical process becomes competitive and reaches carbon neutrality once driven by electricity with carbon intensity (CI) below 0.25 and 0.12 kg CO₂ eq/kWh. Overall, in spite of its massive electricity utilities, the electrochemical ethanol synthesis route is highly promising in environmental impact remediation when coupled with renewable energies, which calls for more efforts from researchers and governments to achieve carbon neutrality and sustainability in years to come.

中文翻译：

前瞻性生命周期评估将生化、热化学和电化学 CO2 还原与可持续乙醇合成联系起来

面对全球关注的气候变化和依赖农业的生化和能源密集型热化学技术，探索可持续乙醇合成以实现碳中和的研究和开发工作迫在眉睫。最近，通过电催化 CO ₂还原反应 (CO ₂ RR) 合成乙醇的电化学过程已成为一种有前景的直接消耗 CO _{2的替代方法}从大气中。尽管在该领域已广泛发现了许多具有迷人活性、选择性和稳定性的卓越电催化剂，但该技术对环境的影响却鲜为人知。在此，进行了生命周期评估 (LCA) 研究，以评估创新电化学过程与传统生化和热化学过程对可持续合成 1 千克乙醇的潜在环境影响和益处。影响评估结果显示，在当代电力结构下，电化学过程仍被生化过程所超越，其环境良性不明显，归因于巨大的电力公用事业占影响的67.7-100%。然而，当由可再生能源，特别是太阳能提供动力时，它优于两条传统路线，影响减少范围为 108.6 至 750.5%，同时在陆地生态毒性 (TETP) 方面提供最大的好处。碳足迹进一步表明，一旦碳强度 (CI) 低于 0.25 和 0.12 kg CO 的电力驱动，电化学过程变得具有竞争力并达到碳中和₂当量/千瓦时。总的来说，尽管电力设施庞大，但电化学乙醇合成路线在与可再生能源相结合时在环境影响修复方面非常有前途，这需要研究人员和政府在未来几年做出更多努力以实现碳中和和可持续性。

更新日期：2023-03-30

点击分享查看原文

点击收藏

阅读更多本刊新发论文本刊介绍/投稿指南