With its steadily increasing usage in electronics and batteries, graphite is an important material and one that has no natural mining production in the United States. Graphite demand has been increasing with adoption of technologies such as lithium-ion batteries, which contain 10 to 30 times more graphite than lithium. A synthetic route for graphite production utilizing CO2 can help break Americas dependence on foreign graphite sources while decreasing CO2 emissions and increasing energy security for the United States. Both the Nations graphite supply and utilization of CO2 are of concern to the Department of Energy, and the DOE carbon utilization R&D effort is focused on development of technologies to transform CO2 into value-added products efficiently, economically, and in an environmentally-friendly manner. As such, production of graphite utilizing CO2 as the feedstock is a win-win, and is consistent with the mission of the Office of Fossil Energy. CO2 is a particularly attractive carbon source for graphite production due to its abundance as well as the negative effects tied to atmospheric CO2 release. While current technology can convert CO2 to carbon products, the process is costly and requires very high energy input. Development of a cost-effective and energy-efficient catalytic process to reduce CO2 to synthetic graphite would not only decrease carbon emissions and energy usage, but would be a game-changing opportunity to produce critical graphite from an abundant resource. The proposed catalyst is composed of metal particles supported on nanofibers, which protects against particle agglomeration, and has surface chemistry that resists coking. Both of these characteristics translate to higher catalyst stability and allow for operation of a multi-stage reactor system to produce graphite on a variety of substrates. To produce the catalyst monolith, an in- house, custom-built 3D printer extruder will be utilized. Phase I of this project will first demonstrate successful synthesis of the catalyst. This will be followed by testing to characterize the catalyst and to quantify its performance at small-scale to validate concept feasibility. Finally, testing of the catalyst in the multi-stage reactor will be used to demonstrate graphite production performance and catalyst stability. In 2018, the U.S. consumed over 36,000 metric tons of natural graphite valued at an estimated $37 million. As the market for electric vehicles (EV) increases, the demand for graphite will also increase due to the high percentage of graphite in lithium-ion batteries used in EVs. Total EV or hybrid vehicle registrations are expected to increase from 2.4 million units in 2020 to 10.4 million units in 2030. Overall, the lithium-ion battery market is forecasted to grow from 145 GWh in 2020 to 385 GWh by 2030. This market alone offers great commercialization potential for graphite production, but other existing and developing markets offer a diverse customer base. In addition, the production of lower-cost and/or higher-quality graphite likely translates to adoption in new sectors such as high-technology, composite materials, construction, and lubricants. Utilizing CO2 as a feedstock for synthesis of graphite benefits the public by avoiding CO2 release to the atmosphere and by securing Americas graphite supply.
