A Lancaster University Chemistry Professor has been awarded €150,000 by the European Commission to develop a new way of making feedstocks for fuels and industrial chemicals from renewable electricity and captured carbon dioxide.

Professor Kathryn Toghill, a specialist in sustainable electrochemistry and energy materials, will lead the project, called Decoupled Co-Electrolysis of Syngas at Scale, beginning in May 2026. The work builds on her previous European Research Council-Starting Grant research project, DeCO-HVP.

Many of the chemicals and fuels we rely on today are made using a feedstock substance called syngas (synthesis gas). Using a method called Fischer-Tropsch synthesis developed during the Second World War, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen (the syngas) is converted to a range of carbon chemicals. Syngas is therefore a key ingredient is producing synthetic fuels, pharmaceuticals, plastics and more.

The problem is that the main sources of syngas are fossil fuels, primarily natural gas and coal. This means its production has a high environmental impact, releasing caron dioxide and contributing to climate change.

Professor Toghill’s new project aims to offer a completely different approach to syngas production and is a radical innovation in the field. Using captured CO2, renewable electricity and water to achieve co-electrolysis, the approach is considerably more sustainable than the status quo. Specifically, the project will use liquid redox mediators, go-between molecules that can be charged to a chemically active state by electricity. In their charged state, they can mix with carbon dioxide and a catalyst to produce syngas, potentially offering a rapid, versatile, and energy-efficient approach to generating syngas of various compositions suited to modification further on down the line. Essentially, the approach uses the components of a charge to drive a secondary chemical reaction instead of generating electricity.

In this approach, Professor Toghill and her team make use of recent advancements in so-called ‘Redox Flow Batteries’ (RFBs), where electrical energy is stored in dissolved molecules. During charging of such a battery, electrons are taken from one molecule (known as oxidation) and stored in the other (known as reduction). The overall process is denoted as a ‘redox’ reaction.

At this stage of the project, Professor Toghill and her team will be working on ways to improve the reaction and optimise the separation of syngas from the reaction mixture. These advances will be crucial for demonstrating that the technology can work at larger scales and be used to de-fossilise the chemical industry.

Professor Toghill says: “We are really excited to be given this opportunity to take our Starting Grant research to the next level, and conceptualise a new, green route towards carbon feedstocks in chemical synthesis.”