From Sunlight and CO2 to Storable Energy Carriers: Plasma Enhanced Solar-thermal CO2 Transformation

June 8th, 2022

R&D Focus Areas:
Direct hydrogen carrier production, Synthetic fuels and chemicals, Advanced manufacturing

Lead Organisation:
CSIRO

Partners:
University of New South Wales (UNSW), RMIT University

Status:
Active

Start date:
February 2022

Completion date:
February 2025

Key contacts:
Dr Yunxia Yang: Yunxia.yang@csiro.au

Funding:
Cash funding supplied through CSIRO.

Project total cost:
AUD$1,150,537 – combined cash and in-kind contribution

Project summary description:
By innovatively incorporating plasma and novel graphene solar thermal heating into a CSIRO invented low temperature CO2 methanation process, the project goal is to invent a highly cost effective and energy efficient process as a game changer to produce renewable energy carriers to promote H2 uptake by market and aid decarbonisation efforts.

Key achievements include:

  • Plasma CO2 methanation process at ambient conditions: 80% CO2 conversion and 100% CH4 selectivity are achieved at ambient conditions without pressure and heating, which is comparable to conventional thermal CO2 methanation process but is a greener process.
  • Plasma CO2 methanation process at ambient conditions has very high energy efficiency, surpassing the thermal process.
  • Plasma CO2 methanation process at ambient conditions is instantaneous, perfectly matching to the intermittent nature of renewable energy input: process reaches steady state within 15 mins while thermal process needs 2-3 hours for ramping up and down. Being so, saving 20-30% load power.

Related publications and key links:

  1. Sana Ullah, Yuan Gao, Liguang Dou, Yadi Liu, Tao Shao, Yunxia Yang, Anthony B. Murphy. Recent trends in plasma-assisted CO2 methanation: A critical review of recent studies, plasma chemistry and plasma processing, accepted.
  2. Daksh Shah, Yunxia Yang, Andrea Merenda, Adam Lee, Karen Wilson, Tianyi Ma and Baohua Jia, TiO2/CoAl-LDH nanocomposites for CO2 photoreduction, ISGTCO2, Oral presentation
  3. J. Zhao, Y. Wang, Y. Yang, K. Wilson and A.F. Lee et al. Impact of doping ZrO2 with Sn on CO2 hydrogenation over dispersed Ru. Materials Today Chemistry, accepted, in Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mtchem.2023.101665

Higher degree studies supported:
Two PhD students are supported by the project.

 

Reviewed: July 2024