HI-Light

The HI-Light reactor being developed at Cornell University is a solar-thermocatalytic “reverse combustion” technology that enables the conversion of CO2 and water to methanol and other high-value hydrocarbons. The innovative claim of the HI-Light reactor design derives from the concurrent optimization of light-coupling and catalyst availability. In the HI-Light design, the tubes are internal light-guiding rods with specially designed scattering surfaces that enable deep and efficient penetration of the solar radiation captured from a parabolic light concentrator into the reactor. The reagents and products flow through the shell outside the rods. The optical energy focused into the reactor interacts with our catalyst to convert incoming sequestered CO2. Photons with energies lower than those required for the catalytic reaction are used to provide thermal energy and ultimately the high temperatures required to ensure selectivity and efficiency of the reaction to revert CO2 to hydrocarbon fuels.

The extraction and consumption of fossil carbon to run our daily lives accounts for over 6 billion metric tons of CO2 emissions each year driving climate change. Creating high value products from CO2 by using energy from all parts of the solar spectrum to photocatalytically produce liquid hydrocarbons at high temperatures, making CO2 capture and conversion economical.

Our goal here is to enable the conversion of CO2 back to simple hydrocarbons, e.g. into methanol which has a typical spot price about 6x higher, potentially transforming carbon conversion into a profitable enterprise. The advances from the project will contribute significantly to the reduction of energy-related emissions, and have a positive impact on energy storage.

The major challenge of electrocatalysis is how to lower the overpotential with breakthroughs in new catalysts. Up to now, product selectivity, lowering faradaic efficiency, and catalyst durability have been hard to achieve. The immense amount of power that it takes to drive the reaction leads to high operating costs. The unique design feature of our HI-Light reactor is the optimized light delivery to both a fixed and fluidized nanostructured catalyst, coupled with solar thermal heating to reach elevated temperatures thereby enabling faster reaction rates and selectivity of higher hydrocarbons. The aim of our combined business and technical effort is to demonstrate that our HI-Light reactor enables substantially improved performance in terms of efficiency, volumetric productivity and mass of hydrocarbon per mass of catalyst per time relative to the state-of-the-art.

The Cornell team has been working with Dimensional Energy (http://dimensionalenergy.net) to commercialize this technology. In addition to advancing into the 10-team final round of the $20 million NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE global competition, the team was also approved for funding by Shell Oil through the Shell GameChanger program, as well as Phase 2 funding from the National Science Foundation through the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program.

The major challenge of electrocatalysis is how to lower the overpotential with breakthroughs in new catalysts. Up to now, product selectivity, lowering faradaic efficiency, and catalyst durability have been hard to achieve. The immense amount of power that it takes to drive the reaction leads to high operating costs. The unique design feature of our HI-Light reactor is the optimized light delivery to both a fixed and fluidized nanostructured catalyst, coupled with solar thermal heating to reach elevated temperatures thereby enabling faster reaction rates and selectivity of higher hydrocarbons. The aim of our combined business and technical effort is to demonstrate that our HI-Light reactor enables substantially improved performance in terms of efficiency, volumetric productivity and mass of hydrocarbon per mass of catalyst per time relative to the state-of-the-art.

I as honored to be selected as one of the “30 Under 30” in Energy (https://www.forbes.com/profile/xiangkun-elvis-cao/) by Forbes Magazine (2018). I was also selected as a local pathways fellow by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network – Youth Initiative (2018), was among “EarthX 30 Under 30: The Green Generation” by the American Conservation Coalition and the National Audubon Society (2019), and the “AACYF Top 30 Under 30 Elites” in “Art, Culture, Science” by All America Chinese Youth Federation (2019). I am one of the five regional finalists for North America in the Young Champions of the Earth Competition by UN Environment (2019), and a national finalist in Lemelson-MIT Student Prize by the Lemelson Foundation (2019). I was also named Honorable Mention (Ranking 3rd out of 122 nationally) for the Link Foundation Energy Fellowship by the Link Foundation (2019). More about my background can be seen from https://www.elviscao.com/.

The major challenge of electrocatalysis is how to lower the overpotential with breakthroughs in new catalysts. Up to now, product selectivity, lowering faradaic efficiency, and catalyst durability have been hard to achieve. The immense amount of power that it takes to drive the reaction leads to high operating costs. The unique design feature of our HI-Light reactor is the optimized light delivery to both a fixed and fluidized nanostructured catalyst, coupled with solar thermal heating to reach elevated temperatures thereby enabling faster reaction rates and selectivity of higher hydrocarbons. The aim of our combined business and technical effort is to demonstrate that our HI-Light reactor enables substantially improved performance in terms of efficiency, volumetric productivity and mass of hydrocarbon per mass of catalyst per time relative to the state-of-the-art.

The innovative claim of the HI-Light reactor design derives from the concurrent optimization of light-coupling and catalyst availability. In the HI-Light design, the tubes are internal light-guiding rods with specially designed scattering surfaces that enable deep and efficient penetration of the solar radiation captured from a parabolic light concentrator into the reactor. The reagents and products flow through the shell outside the rods. The optical energy focused into the reactor interacts with our catalyst to convert incoming sequestered CO2. Photons with energies lower than those required for the catalytic reaction are used to provide thermal energy and ultimately the high temperatures required to ensure selectivity and efficiency of the reaction to revert CO2 to hydrocarbon fuels.