SEMINAR

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

Artificial Photosynthesis Engineering: Designing solar-driven electrochemical reactors for the production of clean fuels and high-value materials

Professor Miguel A. Modestino, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering of New York University (NYU)

Abstract

The need to decouple industrial processes from fossil energy sources only grows more urgent with the fast increase in global energy demand and the multiple global initiatives to mitigate climate change. Chemical manufacturing, already responsible for 26% of the world energy demand, is highly energy-intensive as it requires large amounts of heat derived from fossil sources to drive thermochemical processes. On the other hand, emerging electrochemical processes which require electricity rather than heat, have continued to gain traction as an avenue towards the integration of renewable energy sources in the chemical industry. Electrochemical processes allow to directly interconvert clean electricity, from solar or wind, into chemical energy and high-value products. This presentation will present opportunities in clean chemical manufacturing of fuels and polymer precursors through the design and optimization of solar-driven electrochemical reactors.

Through a combination of technoeconomic modeling, device demonstrations and advanced electrochemical reactor designs I will show how electrochemical engineering principles can be applied to fabricate high- efficiency and cost-effective solar-hydrogen generators. I will then discuss how designing efficient organic electrochemical systems may result into more sustainable production of high-value polymeric materials. Specifically, I will discuss the development of a solar-driven electrohydrodimerization process for production of adiponitrile (ADN), a precursor to Nylon 6,6. Although this model reaction is the largest and most successful organic electrosynthesis implemented in industry, it faces many challenges owing to its limited energy conversion and selectivity. Through a combination of experimental electroanalytical characterization, we elucidate guidelines for the optimal design and operation of ADN electrosynthetic reactors. Our results provide insights into mass transport limitations that affect the selectivity of ADN electrosynthesis and on how to control electrode processes to mitigate them.

Biography

Miguel A. Modestino is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering of New York University (NYU). Miguel obtained his B.S in Chemical Engineering (2007) and M.S. in Chemical Engineering Practice (2008) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his Ph.D. in from the University of California, Berkeley (2013). From 2013-2016, he was a post-doctoral fellow at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland where he served as project manager for the Solar Hydrogen Integrated Nano-electrolysis (SHINE) project. He is a winner of the 2016 Global Change Award from the H&M Foundation, 2017 MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 Latam Award and the 2018 ACS Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator Award. He is the director of the Multifunctionals Materials Systems Laboratory at NYU which focusses on the development of advanced electrochemical technologies for the incorporation of renewable energy into chemical manufacturing. He is also co-founder of Sunthetics Inc., a startup developing a sustainable process for the production of Nylon 6,6 intermediates.