The Governing Council of the University of Toronto

Published purpose

An integrated electrochemical reactor that first reduces CO2 to hydrocarbons and subsequently upgrades the resultant CO2-derived products into novel, higher-value products is to be developed. A key reaction to be investigated during the project is first converting CO2 to ethylene and then upgrading to ethylene glycol. There has been significant progress in the demonstration of cathodic CO2 reduction to small carbon molecules such as CO and ethylene, but there has been much less work in further upgrading such molecules into higher value products in an integrated system. This will be a key objective of the project. When products offering a greater economic value can be obtained from renewable electrosynthesis, then these pathways are likely to be commercially adopted and result in major climate benefits at scale. The project will therefore focus on developing a technological pathway to promote new and valuable CO2-derived hydrocarbon upgrading reactions, with ethylene to ethylene glycol as the initial model system.