Life cycle assessment of a novel porous solid-state electrolyte reactor: Acetic acid as a case study

Abstract

Utilizing captured waste carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions as feedstocks to carbon monoxide (CO) electrolyzers is a promising technology to produce valuable chemical products at an industrially relevant scale. The chemical industry is currently operated by industrial processes that are heavily reliant on fossil-based feedstocks making it a hard to decarbonize industry but also simultaneously making it an industry that is ideal for captured carbon valorization. Through the use of a CO reduction reaction (CORR) utilizing a porous solid-state electrolyte (PSE) reactor, high-purity chemical products can be produced from captured waste CO2 emissions after upstream processing and a tandem CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) to convert the captured CO2 into a CO feedstock for the PSE reactor. This work presents a life cycle assessment (LCA) and preliminary techno-economic assessment (TEA) of the conventional CORR electrolysis process utilizing a PSE reactor to produce high-purity acetic acid. The production of acetic acid, a high-demand commodity chemical, is utilized in this case study to showcase the PSE CORR reactor capabilities which are unique to its field in that a PSE reactor forgoes the requirement for energy intensive downstream product separation efforts associated with conventional liquid-based electrolytic reactors. Through LCA methodology, this work shows that CORR electrolysis utilizing a PSE can potentially reduce CO2 eq emissions per kg of acetic acid produced by at least 93% or more as compared to the traditional production process of methanol carbonylation and promote a near carbon neutral alternative process to industrially producing acetic acid when utilizing captured carbon with any energy grid excluding ones solely operated by coal and even potentially promote a carbon negative process under certain clean energy sources. This conclusion applies when the carbon feedstock is considered a waste stream and the “zero-burden assumption” is applied to all upstream processing except includes the upstream energy required to capture and convert the CO2 into CO. When not utilizing captured carbon, the process is still near carbon neutral even without the captured carbon credit for all grids excluding those operated exclusively using coal and far outperforms the traditional production method of methanol carbonylation regardless of the electricity source. However, this scenario does not currently show carbon-negative production of acetic acid even through the use of renewable energy. © 2026 Elsevier B.V.