Abstract 摘要

According to the analyses by NASA, the past five years have been the warmest of the past 140 years. Greenhouse gas emission is one of the primary reasons for recent climate change. The atmospheric CO₂, which is one of the major components in greenhouse gases, increases rapidly in recent years. To reduce CO₂ emission and transit towards carbon emission-free energy technologies is one of the biggest challenges in today’s chemical production industry. As one of the highly populated areas in the world, the Hong Kong government has announced a policy, Hong Kong’s Climate Action Plan 2030+, aiming to lower carbon emissions. Electrochemical conversion of CO₂ into chemical feedstocks and fuels offers a solution to turn the waste, CO₂, into valuable products, closing the carbon loop. This technology can couple with renewable sources of electricity, achieving a net negative/ neutral carbon emission footprint. One example that we are hoping is the liquid sunlight. With efficient catalysts designed and proper device fabrication, we could produce green liquid fuels using CO₂ and H₂O to store sunshine for short- and long-term storage, transport, and distribution.

根據NASA的分析，過去五年是過去140年來最熱的五年。溫室氣體排放是近期氣候變化的主要原因之一。減少CO₂排放和建立綠色低碳節能的現代化工業體系是當今化學生產行業的最大挑戰之一。作為世界上人口稠密的地區之一，香港政府宣布了一項政策，即「香港2030+氣候行動計劃」，旨在降低碳排放量。其中，電化學CO₂轉換可變廢為寶，將CO₂轉化為化學工業原料和燃料並且實現閉環碳循環。當使用可再生電能供能時，這項技術有望實現淨負/中性碳排放。其中一個例子是液態陽光。通過有效的催化劑設計和適當的設備製造，我們可以使用CO₂和H₂O來「存儲」陽光，以進行短期和長期存儲，運輸和分配，從而生產綠色液體燃料。