Clean power
Published on August 8, 2020 |
by Steve Hanley
August 8, 2020 due to Steve Hanley
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could do something useful with too much carbon dioxide other than catching it, compressing it and burying it deep in the ocean floor? Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory may have discovered a way to do just that.
Image credit: Argonne National Lab
According to a press release from ANL, researchers at the lab, working with partners at Northern Illinois University, have discovered a new electrocatalyst that converts carbon dioxide and water into ethanol with very high energy efficiency, high selectivity for the desired end product, and low costs. Ethanol is a particularly desirable brand because it is an ingredient in almost every American gasoline and is widely used as an intermediate product in the chemical, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries.
“The process resulting from our catalyst would contribute to the circular carbon economy, which includes the recycling of carbon dioxide,” said Di-Jia Liu, senior chemist in Argonne’s division of chemical sciences and engineering and also a scientist at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. “The process that comes out of our catalyst would contribute to the circular carbon economy, which includes the recycling of carbon dioxide,” he says. The new electrochemical process converts carbon dioxide emitted from industrial processes, such as energy plants for fossil fuels or alcohol fermentation plants, into valuable goods at reasonable cost.
The catalyst itself consists of atomically dispersed copper supported on a carbon powder. It breaks down carbon dioxide and water molecules and selectively collects them again in ethanol with an external electric field. The electrocatalytic selectivity as Faradaic efficiency of the process is more than 90%, which is significantly higher than it is when using another reported process. The catalyst operates stably over extended operation at low voltage.
“With this research, we have discovered a new catalytic mechanism for converting carbon dioxide and water into ethanol,” said Tao Xu, a professor of physical chemistry and nanotechnology at Northern Illinois University. “The mechanism should also support a basis for the development of highly efficient electrocatalysts for carbon dioxide conversion to a wide variety of value-added chemicals.”
Because CO2 is a stable molecule, it normally requires large amounts of energy in another molecule, which makes the conversion process costly. Liu says: “We were able to link the electrochemical process of CO2-to-ethanol conversion with our catalyst to the electrical grid and can take advantage of the low cost electricity available from sustainable sources such as solar and wind in off-peak hours. ” Because the process runs at low temperature and pressure, it can start and stop quickly in response to the intermittent supply of renewable electricity.
The study took advantage of two facilities at ANL – the Advanced Photon Source and Center for Nanoscale Materials. It also had access to the Lab’s Center Computing Resource Center. “Due to the high photon flux of the X-rays at the APS, we detected the structural changes of the catalyst during the electrochemical reaction,” said Tao Li, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Northern University of Illinois and an assistant scientist in the X-ray Science division of Argonne.
These results of the study opened new paths that could lead to further improvements in catalyst design. “We have created several new catalysts with this approach and found that they are all very efficient at converting CO2 to other hydrocarbons,” says Liu. “We plan to continue this research in collaboration with the industry to advance this advancing technology.” The study was recently published in the journal Natural Energy.
The Takeaway
The result of this new research is to create a process that can reuse and recycle carbon dioxide for fuels and chemicals that today are derived from oil as well as natural gas. Consider the role that low cost renewable energy plays in this scenario. What we are witnessing is a convergence of technologies that could result in ways to substantially reduce the amount of carbon dioxide added by the sector to the atmosphere and at much lower costs than previously thought possible.
Ethanol and the other chemicals that could result from this and similar processes are essential building blocks for the plastics industry. If this discovery could be combined with the creation of new recyclable and biodegradable plastics, that would be an important step forward in building a circular economy, one that does not destroy the environment in the pursuit of profit.
The Drawdown Project has just released an update of its roadmap to a sustainable world, which it says can happen today without waiting for new technologies to appear. This latest news from Argonne National Lab could be incorporated with the ideas promoted by this latest Drawdown Review to help create a business environment built on the idea that the Earth’s resources are finite and should be used as wisely as possible.
Hat tip To Frank, a regular CleanTechnica reader who often leaves comments about our stories. Thanks, Frank!
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About the Author
Steve Hanley Steve writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his homes in Florida and Connecticut as well as wherever the Singularity can lead him. You can follow him Twitter but not on every social media platform run by evil gentlemen like Facebook.
