One of the downsides of burning fossil fuels is the resulting carbon emissions. To keep up with the energy demands of the modern world, and find greener energy solutions, researchers are looking to develop and expand the use of alternative fuel sources that burn less, if any, fossil fuels, and therefore produce less carbon.
Cao Thang Dinh has a particularly innovative solution to the challenge: making alternative fuels out of carbon dioxide. He has invented patented devices which convert carbon dioxide into valuable chemicals such as ethylene, ethanol, and propanol. These chemicals, also called precursor fuels, can then be added to fuels or, in some cases, used as fuels on their own.
Dinh was recently named a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Fuels and Chemicals, a position which will propel his continued research into an electrochemical conversion process he developed that uses electricity to break down CO2 and water molecules.
“The main challenge here is that it takes a lot of energy to break down carbon dioxide molecules, and it's even more challenging to combine them together to make the molecule that you want,” he says. “You don't want to make byproducts. You want to make valuable chemicals.”
The electrochemical processor where the reaction happens is a small rectangular box about the size of the palm of your hand. Dinh and his interdisciplinary group of graduate students are working to take this early-stage research, capable of converting a few milligrams of CO2 per day, into a larger scale and more efficient operation. With additional support from Queen’s and partners, Dinh is currently building a system to convert a kilogram of CO2 per day to precursor fuel chemicals with the intent of attracting more industry interest enroute to full commercialization of the technology.
“It's a modular technology so you can make multiple small reactors and combine them together so it will work like a big reactor,” says Dinh.
Thanks to the research chair position, Dinh has been able to expand his research partnerships, enabling possible collaborations and new potential funding sources while allowing him the time to focus on his research. His work to date has connected him with like-minded researchers within Queen’s and also at the University of Toronto, McGill University, Northwestern University in Illinois, and researchers in Spain and Germany. His work has also garnered support from the Governments of Canada and of Quebec. These collaborations have been aimed at both improving the existing process and refining it to produce other chemicals focused on specific industries, such as fertilizer.
“We can also convert the carbon dioxide into ethylene, which is a precursor for polymer, so you can use that to make plastic and polymer from the carbon dioxide,” he says. “You can also convert the CO2 into carbon monoxide and from that you can make methanol and synthetic aviation fuels. We can make intermediate fuels, but we can also make the final products as well.”
Dinh is one of 16 Canada Research Chairs announced for Queen’s in Fall 2024, including three professors affiliated with Smith Engineering: Amir Fam, Bhavin Shastri, and Lidan You.