Cost-competitive and sustainable biofuels are key to combating climate change, meeting increasing energy demand, and supporting energy independence. Affordable low-carbon biofuels are especially important for hard-to-electrify transportation sectors, such as commercial aviation, which accounted for 10% of total U.S. transportation-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2019. Currently, biorefinery economics are driven by separations, which can account for up to 70% of bioprocessing costs. As an alternative to conventional thermal-based methods, capacitive deionization (CDI) is based on reversible electrosorption of charged species from aqueous solution. This work focuses on development of CDI as a reagent-free and cost-effective method for selective separation and recovery of aqueous organic species (e.g., carboxylates) from bioconversion streams with low energy consumption. Electrosorption isotherm data will be presented along with charge-discharge cycling results that demonstrate consistent and reversible extraction of a model carboxylate (butyrate) using porous carbon electrodes. The influence of key operational parameters, including flow rate, applied voltage, and segment time will be presented. The incorporation of tunable electrode materials to enable selective electrosorption will also be discussed. This work targets improvements to process economics and sustainability, estimated through techno-economic analysis (TEA) and life cycle assessment (LCA), respectively. Overall, this work informs the development of a new separation platform for the selective separation of organic species to provide concentrated, clean intermediates from which biofuels and bio-based chemicals can be manufactured.

Reversible electrosorption of carboxylates for bioenergy production through capacitive deionization

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ACS Fall 2022

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