The challenge of scaling up an emerging electrification technology

Chemical and materials engineering professor, Adnan Khan, has spent the previous 15 years focusing his analysis on creating sustainable applied sciences geared toward decarbonizing our vitality techniques. “This is the most important challenge we face today. We owe this to our future generations,” he says.

But it surely’s one factor to say we have to transition our energy systemsand one other to determine how one can do it in a cheap and sustainable method.

To assist, Khan has created the Power Transition Lab with the purpose of creating and analyzing novel supplies, applied sciences and credible transition pathways in direction of net-zero emissions for Canada.

Khan says the query of credibility is essential for his 10-person lab, which employs systems-level evaluation to look at whether or not new applied sciences or options will in the end assist or hinder the general purpose of vitality transition.

“Before investing money, energy and time developing new materials and processes, we need to understand how a plant designed at a practical or industrial scale will work,” he says. “It’s obscure the challenges of the industrial process.”

This miscalculation of industrial-scale processes is the premise of a current paper revealed by his workforce within the journal Nature Catalysis.The article reveals {that a} well-intended rising electrification expertise that’s designed to assist decarbonize the chemical sector—which accounts for 2 % of world emissions—will really improve each vitality use and value.

“Decarbonizing the industry using electrification is a step in the right direction, but the technology researchers are currently pursuing can lead to significant challenges,” Khan says.

The expertise relies on alkaline electrocatalytic techniques that may be powered by renewable electricity for chemical manufacturing. These techniques make use of a fundamental resolution with a excessive pH, or excessive alkalinity, to hurry up chemical reactions that contain electrical energy.

The workforce make clear the challenges of creating an industrial course of based mostly on this expertise, notably the downstream product separation. To do it, they simulated the economic course of and analyzed it utilizing financial fashions they developed in-house.

For the examine, Khan regarded on the course of to provide glycolic acid. Glycolic acid is a helpful chemical used within the cosmetics business and the family and industrial cleansing business. It’s touted to play a key function in the way forward for bioplastics.

The outcomes introduced within the examine recommend that an alkaline electrocatalytic route for glycolic acid manufacturing would require the usage of costly downstream product separation that may result in a rise in each uncooked materials and vitality prices. All advised, the value of manufacturing glycolic acid produced this fashion would leap to US$2.20 to 2.50 per kilogram, a rise of as much as 40% in comparison with the present market worth, which is round US$1.50 per kilogram.

Khan concludes that the challenges associated to acid-base response chemistry are sometimes neglected on the catalyst growth stage, leading to a major waste of analysis sources.

“I know we have to act fast because human activity-related emissions have led to a significant impact on climate change. But we need to develop credible solutions to get to net-zero emissions.”