(650b) Development of Catalytic Process for CO2 Utilization

The utilization of CO2 as a raw material in the synthesis of chemicals and liquid energy carriers offers a direct way to mitigate the increasing CO2 build-up in the atmosphere. However, high-energy reagents and harsh reaction conditions are typically required for transforming CO2 into other chemicals. Renewable hydrogen is a high-energy material that can be stored by hydrogenating CO2 to valuable secondary energy carriers, such as methane, methanol, and formic acid. Indeed, formic acid/formate has been widely used in agriculture and industry and is the potential hydrogen storage. Herein, we developed a process of hydrogenating liquid amine captured CO2, the intermediates in the Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) process, over supported palladium nano-catalysts, to produce formates. We further developed the rechargeable “hydrogen battery” based on the redox equilibrium between amine captured CO2 / formate amine adducts. The stored hydrogen can be catalytically released under mild conditions as the feed to fuel cells for regenerating electricity. The strategies of the process development has been focused on the efficiency (rate of CO2 hydrogenation and dehydrogenation reactions) and energy use (the amount of energy required to utilize CO2 in existing products). This development also includes gaining insight into the relationships among the various structures of amines, solvent effect, distribution of intermediates, catalytic performance, and reaction mechanism.