ProActivE - Project Alliance for Selective Electrocatalysis

The vision of the project is to initiate an environment for the whole value chain of
materials development for environmentally friendly, electrocatalytic production of
valuable chemicals in Denmark. Today the production of chemicals is done mainly
by heterogeneous catalysis where the free energy for driving the reaction is
provided by the conditions (reactants, temperature and pressure). Production of
some chemicals therefore relies on dangerous process conditions, costly starting
molecules and low yields due to low selectivity. Electrochemical production of
chemicals offers several potential advantages. Since the reaction energy can be
directly controlled by the electrode potential it is possible to use more benign
reaction conditions, less costly reactants and obtain higher yields. Electrochemical
production of chemicals will be of high strategic interest for countries with a high
degree of sustainable energy production to utilize the electric energy efficiently and
economically. We have identified three particularly interesting reactions that span
very different catalytic challenges and where electrocatalytic production would be a
huge advantage. However, new materials are needed to catalyze the reactions. The
challenge is to understand and control the parameters that determine the electrode
surface reactions at the atomic level. To meet this challenge we will form an
interdisciplinary consortium. This project will make it possible to follow a bottomup
approach for designing active, stable and selective electrocatalysts, starting at
the atomic scale and finishing with an industrial catalyst. This project can open a
new safer, environmentally friendly, more efficient and decentralized direction for
production of Chemicals.