(Energy Technology Division Supramaniam Srinivasan Young Investigator Award) CO₂ as a Building Block for Electrosynthetic Coupling to N- and S- Based Reactants

Energy-intensive thermochemical processes within chemical manufacturing are a major contributor to global CO 2 emissions. With the increasing push for sustainability, the scientific community is striving to develop renewable energy-powered electrochemical technologies in lieu of CO 2 -emitting fossil-fuel-driven methods. However, to fully electrify chemical manufacturing, it is imperative to expand the scope of electrosynthetic technologies, particularly through the innovation of reactions involving nitrogen- and sulfur- based reactants as products from water/CO 2 electrolysis do not cover the full scope of industrial needs. To this end, this talk focuses on my lab’s efforts not only in CO 2 conversion in the use of this molecule as a building block. This entails the co-electrolysis of CO 2 with additional small molecule reactants (N 2 , NO 3 - , SO 3 2- ...) in generating products with C-N and C-S bonds like amides, urea, and sulfonates that are important as commodity and fine chemicals in the chemical industry. In particular, I will discuss several new reaction pathways discovered towards several of the above-mentioned products and the application of operando techniques to understand the key C-N/C-S coupling steps in the reaction process.