5.19.21-Japan-Sustainability-Karthish-Manthiram

• Video details

  Chemical synthesis is responsible for significant emissions of carbon dioxide worldwide. Using renewable electricity to drive chemical synthesis may provide a route to overcoming the carbon footprint, by enabling synthetic routes which operate at benign conditions and utilize sustainable inputs. We are developing an electrosynthetic toolkit in which distributed feedstocks, including carbon dioxide, dinitrogen, water, and renewable electricity, can be converted into diverse fuels, chemicals, and materials. In this presentation, we will first share recent advances made in our laboratory on nitrogen fixation to synthesize ammonia at ambient conditions. We will then discuss how to drive selective carbon dioxide reduction and use water as an oxygen-atom source for epoxidation reactions. These example reactions will illustrate how the modularity of chemical manufacturing could be enhanced through electrochemical routes which open up local and on-demand production of critical chemicals and materials.

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