ETA 2021 Strategic Plan - Flipbook - Page 25
renewable feedstocks such as water, nitrogen,
CO2, green hydrogen, renewable electrons,
biomass, and others. Today a diverse portfolio
of synthetic routes is only now coming to bear
to compete against traditional thermochemical
processes that rely on hydrocarbon feedstocks.
ETA’s Science of Manufacturing Initiative will
leverage this portfolio to manufacture highvolume and/or high-value chemicals, as well as
new metastable materials and metamaterials
that have not been synthesized previously.
As informed through life-cycle and technoeconomic analyses and possible identified
critical MGI compounds, chemical families will
be selected for manufacture. Using detailed
operando diagnostics and characterization
at Berkeley Lab user facilities, including
the Molecular Foundry and Advanced Light
Source, ETA researchers will formulate the
underpinnings of the synthesis steps, and
guided by simulation of those steps, enable new
processes and materials. Key is the coupling of
computation in the synthesis train with adaptive
learning through advanced algorithms and
robotic-based, self-driving synthesis.
An initial application of the science of synthesis
will be to the Electrochemical Refinery, wherein
natural, green feedstocks are combined with
low-cost renewable electrons to synthesize
value-added chemicals and materials that
perhaps cannot be synthesized in other ways.
The Electrochemical Refinery enables a shift
to a power-to-products paradigm. This is
possible through the use of advanced reactor
architectures such as those used in gasdiffusion electrodes (GDEs) and fuel cells that
are shown to be able to generate products
where downstream separation can perhaps
be avoided. Utilizing these structures allows
for one to move down the manufacturing
curve simultaneously for different processes,
and for numbering up as well as scaling up,
thereby shortening the design-build-test-learn
cycle. This new electron paradigm provides
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emerging avenues and opportunities for
synthesis and holds promise in decarbonizing
the primary manufacturing sector feedstocks.
The key challenges to realize this vision are
understanding the electrochemical versus
the thermal driving force, combining them in
intelligent, synergistic ways, and demonstrating
efficient operability at high conversion rates and
high selectivity. An initial step for making valueadded chemicals is to utilize renewable electrons
to synthesize chemical building blocks efficiently.
A key initial chemical is hydrogen, which is used
in many subsequent conversions, including
both traditional and novel ones. Electrochemical
methods have the opportunity to generate
high concentrations of these key oxidizing
intermediates. For chemicals that contain
carbon-carbon bonds, biomass or CO2 are key
feedstocks. In this fashion, one can design
reactive capture systems that result in neutral or
even negative total carbon emissions.
Another application of this focus area is
based on the Circular Economy, with a specific
emphasis on reducing plastic waste. The key
here is to synthesize compounds that are readily
upcycled or biodegraded. The targets of the
synthesis will be informed through exploration
of the life cycle of different current plastics,
where we aim to understand how material
and product type determine the likely fate of
different plastic wastes. This effort will also
identify where advanced sorting, upcycling, and
recycling technologies can be developed and
applied to increase material recovery. One of
the most pressing challenges facing the recycling
industry is the lack of reliable identification
methods for plastic type, as well as knowledge of
the underlying degradation pathways. Due to the
chemical similarity between some novel plastics
and conventional petroleum-derived plastics,
as well as the challenges posed by composite
materials, the waste management industry
lacks a fast and reliable method to differentiate
between them. Berkeley Lab has a long history
of analytical innovation, from identifying
iridium in earth sediment leading to the
elucidation of dinosaur extinction in the 1970s
to identifying the food sources of the ancient
Egyptians more recently. Such techniques and
understanding will complement and inform the
novel synthetic routes. In a 30-year horizon, the
market for plastics is likely to shift dramatically,
with most packaging coming from bio-based
materials or other polymers designed for
faster upcycling, recycling, or breakdown. For
example, production of polylactic acid (PLA) has
grown five-fold since 2011. ETA will be a central
contributor in the effort to mitigate plastic waste
by building the capacity to both evaluate new
polymers in this context and understand the lifecycle environmental and economic implications.
The third application ETA will consider in this
focus area is the Decarbonization of Industrial
Heat. Most traditional processes that exist
for the synthesis of high-value chemicals and
materials are thermochemical in nature and
rely on hydrocarbon feedstocks to provide the
required heat. Replacing those hydrocarbon
feedstocks with renewable sources of heat
(while maintaining the thermochemical-type
synthesis process) would be one of the least
disruptive ways to decarbonize industrial-scale
synthesis. However, there is no one-size-fits-all
drop-in solution to this problem. Different kinds
of synthesis have vastly different requirements
for the type of thermal energy they need and
how that energy is coupled into the process.
For example, some processes require extreme
temperatures (~2,000°C) that are currently
produced by a blast furnace, while others
require only moderate temperatures (a few
hundred °C) but at extreme pressures. To
address these variations, in this focus area, we
will use a combination of high-performance
computing simulations coupled with
experimental verification to study how different
synthesis pathways can accept heat in different
forms, or at different stages that could be
amenable to alternative and renewable sources
of supplied heat.
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