Author: avenkata42

Skylar Ryan won the AIChE Outstanding Senior Award, which recognizes an individual who has impacted others through inspiration, actions, and/or leadership through extracurricular activities during their time at Georgia Tech.

Owen Pittman wins the Chair’s award for outstanding ChBE senior, which recognizes a graduating ChBE senior for their academic achievement and service to the ChBE and greater GT communities.

Kaung Su and Natechanok have been awarded the Eckert Graduate Fellowship from ChBE. This fellowship recognizes their accomplishments and provides an additional stipend and monetary award for procuring materials and supplies for their research.

Link to issue:

https://www.nature.com/natchemeng/volumes/1/issues/11

About the article:

Our latest manuscript, “Process and techno-economic analyses of ethylene production by electrochemical reduction of aqueous alkaline carbonates,” has been published online in Nature Chemical Engineering. The study is also featured on the cover of the November 2024 issue, and a research briefing summarizes key findings.

In this collaborative effort between Georgia Tech and the Dow Chemical Company, we explored innovative process designs by integrating the electrolyzer with a direct air capture unit, advanced membrane-based separation technologies, and stream recycling. This approach aims to create a more renewable and sustainable pathway for producing ethylene at large scales (~2 million tons/year).

Key highlights from our study include:
– A process with near-neutral Scope-1 and Scope-2 CO₂ emissions in the optimistic scenario, albeit with a significant energy penalty.
– A roadmap to achieving <1 USD/kg ethylene.
– Sensitivity analysis on key process parameters that can guide experimentalists.
– Comparison of economics between contemporary electrolyzer architectures.
– Detailed sizing and costing for large-scale electrolyzer.
 
The Georgia Tech authors include Anush Venkataraman, Hakhyeon Song, Victor Brandão, Chen Ma, Magdalena Salazar Casajus, and Carlos Fernandez Otero. The PIs are Sankar Nair, Marta Hatzell, and Carsten Sievers.

Anomitra De and Savyasachi Shrikhande join the group as PhD-track researchers, and Owen Pittman as an undergraduate researcher.