This array of bolts looks heavy duty, but the impressive part is happening below it. Andrea Klenotiz and other scientists at start-up Lectrolyst were preparing this electrochemical reactor—the stack of plates under the rods—for a demonstration last year. If the electrochemical stack isn’t squeezed tight, the system becomes much less efficient and even leaky. The start-up aims to convert carbon dioxide and other waste carbon oxides to more useful compounds. The two-step process Lectrolyst is currently trying to scale up uses a catalytic system to turn CO2 to carbon monoxide in one reactor, and then another reactor reduces that gas to products like acetate and ethylene, using other catalysts.

Submitted by Bradie S. Crandall

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Manny I. Fox Morone

Chemical & Engineering News

ISSN 0009-2347

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