Roh K

Vol. 28,  No. 1, pp. 9-17, Mar.  2022
10.7464/ksct.2022.28.1.9

Life cycle assessment Carbon monoxide Electrochemical CO2 reduction CO2 capture and utilization Greenhouse gas reduction

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Electrochemical carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction technology, one of the promising solutions for climate change, can convert CO2, a representative greenhouse gas (GHG), into valuable base chemicals using electric energy. In particular, carbon monoxide (CO), among various candidate products, is attracting much attention from both academia and industry because of its high Faraday efficiency, promising economic feasibility, and relatively large market size. Although numerous previous studies have recently analyzed the GHG reduction potential of this technology, the assumptions made and inventory data used are neither consistent nor transparent. In this study, a comparative life cycle assessment was carried out to analyze the potential for reducing GHG emissions in the electrochemical CO production process in a more transparent way. By defining three different system boundaries, the global warming impact was compared with that of a fossil fuel-based CO production process. The results confirmed that the emission factor of electric energy supplied to CO2-electrolyzers should be much lower than that of the current national power generation sector in order to mitigate GHG emissions by replacing conventional CO production with electrochemical CO production. Also, it is important to disclose transparently inventory data of the conventional CO production process for a more reliable analysis of GHG reduction potential.