Dec
16
Progress On The Hunt Converting CO2 Back To Fuel
December 16, 2015 | Leave a Comment
This is a major breakout for those of us interested in getting to more, better and cheaper energy for the world’s economy. The concept of humanity participating in a fast planetary carbon cycle that endlessly recycles energy dense fuels in today’s existing invested heating, cooling, transport and manufacturing infrastructure would be a huge driver for healthy growing world economy.
The results of the study, that have been published in the journal ACS Catalysis, will streamline the search for an inexpensive yet highly effective new catalyst.
Hybrid porous catalysts can be “grown” to capture and convert carbon dioxide to useful fuels, in analogy to a plant’s ability to turn carbon dioxide into biomass. Computer modeling showed how to tune catalytic functional groups embedded within a nano-porous solid to facilitate fast reaction rates for converting carbon dioxide and hydrogen to valuable products. Image Credit and Design: Jingyun Ye. Click image for the largest view.
Imagine operating a power plant that takes the excess CO2 put in the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels and converts it back into fuel. Now imagine that power plant uses only a little water and the energy in sunlight to operate. The power may even be home, small business or community sized. The power plant wouldn’t burn fossil fuels and would actually reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere during the manufacturing process.
For millions of years plants have been using water, sunlight, and CO2 to create sugars that allow them to grow. Scientists around the globe are now adopting their energy-producing behavior.
Karl Johnson, the William Kepler Whiteford Professor in the Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh and principal investigator of the study said, “We’re trying to speed up the natural carbon cycle and make it more efficient. You don’t have to waste energy on all the extra baggage it takes to grow plants, and the result is a man-made carbon cycle that produces liquid fuel.”
So far there’s always been that one catch – CO2 is a very stable molecule, and enormous amounts of energy are required to get it to react. One common way to make use of excess CO2 involves removing an oxygen atom and combining the remaining CO with H2 to create methanol. However, during this process parts of the conversion reactor need to heat as high as 1000º C, which can be difficult to sustain, especially when the only energy source is the sun.
A catalyst can get the CO2 to react at much lower temperatures. Some researchers have been experimenting with different materials that can get the CO2 to split – even at room temperature. But these, and most, reactive catalysts already identified are too expensive to mass-produce, and fossil fuels still offer a cheap source of energy. The low price and abundance of fossil fuels prevents a lot of companies from investing in the expensive trial and error process of researching new catalysts.
The study, “Screening Lewis Pair Moieties for Catalytic Hydrogenation of CO2 in Functionalized UiO-66” provides researchers with a good idea of how they should start looking for an optimal catalyst. The short cut for trial and error is at hand.
Johnson, along with study co-author and post-doctoral researcher Jingyun Ye at the University of Pittsburgh, examined a series of eight different functional groups of Lewis acid and base pairs (Lewis pairs for short), which are highly reactive compounds often used as catalysts. They found that the two factors qualifying a material as a good catalyst are its hydrogen adsorption energy and the Lewis pair’s hardness – a measurement of the difference between its ionization potential and electron affinity.
Using the new framework, Johnson plans to work with experimentalists to screen for catalysts more effectively, and hopefully, bring researchers closer to creating power plants that create liquid fuel while reducing atmospheric CO2.
That brings real potential to using the CO2 in the atmosphere every time you fill up your gas tank. The power plant might even be on your roof perhaps making natural gas, propane and gasoline or diesel fuel.
The distant dream is looking a little more real now.
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