Scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have discovered a chemical reaction to turn CO2 into ethanol, potentially creating a new technology to help avert climate change. Their findings were published in the journal ChemistrySelect.
The
researchers were attempting to find a series of chemical reactions that
could turn CO2 into a useful fuel, when they realized the first step in
their process managed to do it all by itself. The reaction turns CO2
into ethanol, which could in turn be used to power generators and
vehicles.
The tech involves a new
combination of copper and carbon arranged into nanospikes on a silicon
surface. The nanotechnology allows the reactions to be very precise,
with very few contaminants.
"By
using common materials, but arranging them with nanotechnology, we
figured out how to limit the side reactions and end up with the one
thing that we want," said Adam Rondinone.
This process has several advantages when compared to other methods of converting CO2 into fuel.
The reaction uses common materials like copper and carbon, and it
converts the CO2 into ethanol, which is already widely used as a fuel.
Perhaps
most importantly, it works at room temperature, which means that it can
be started and stopped easily and with little energy cost. This means
that this conversion process could be used as temporary energy storage
during a lull in renewable energy generation, smoothing out fluctuations in a renewable energy grid.
A process like this would
allow you to consume extra electricity when it's available to make and
store as ethanol," said Rondinone. "This could help to balance a grid
supplied by intermittent renewable sources."
The
researchers plan to further study this process and try and make it more
efficient. If they're successful, we just might see large-scale carbon
capture using this technique in the near future.
Source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory via New Atlas
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