CO2 To Ethanol In One Step With Cheap Catalyst (sciencedaily.com) 228
Reader networkBoy writes: Boffins at ORNL (Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory) have discovered a simple and cheap catalyst that can take CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) dissolved in solution with water and at room temperature convert it to ethanol with 60%+ yields. They envision it as a way to store surplus power from green energy plants and then burning it to fill in lulls in supply.From the report:The team used a catalyst made of carbon, copper and nitrogen and applied voltage to trigger a complicated chemical reaction that essentially reverses the combustion process. With the help of the nanotechnology-based catalyst which contains multiple reaction sites, the solution of carbon dioxide dissolved in water turned into ethanol with a yield of 63 percent. Typically, this type of electrochemical reaction results in a mix of several different products in small amounts. "We're taking carbon dioxide, a waste product of combustion, and we're pushing that combustion reaction backwards with very high selectivity to a useful fuel," Rondinone said. "Ethanol was a surprise -- it's extremely difficult to go straight from carbon dioxide to ethanol with a single catalyst."
No way! (Score:3)
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#I read The Register way too much...
$summary=~s/boffins/alpha geeks/ig; #happy?
#-nb
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By law, boffintry can only be granted to citizens of the UK.
This is a common misconception, but in fact any member of the British Commonwealth can qualify for boffin status. There is lively competition between English, Scottish, Welsh, North Irish, Australian, Kiwi, and even Canadian boffins.
In fact, I hear that many boffins vied to bring us this information.
[Ducks.]
Link to the paper (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a link to the actual paper [sci-hub.cc].
(Since the editors won't do it.)
The catalyst looks pretty good. I'd be interested to see how long it lasts - some catalysts become poisoned by impurities in the source gasses, and lose effectiveness over time.
The paper mentions copper oxide forming on the copper nanoparticles due to transport in the air to the test equipment. That probably means that the catalyst might lose effectiveness due to dissolved oxygen in the water.
Any actual chemists care to comment?
Re:Link to the paper (Score:5, Funny)
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see what you did there.
Whoosh! *
* Literally.
Re:Link to the paper (Score:5, Informative)
A better link is the one from ScienceDaily which points to here: the actual paper [wiley.com]. My employer blocks sci-hub because they regularly post papers in violation of copyright.
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Key quote:
"The overpotential (which might be lowered with the proper electrolyte, and by separating the hydrogen production to another catalyst) probably precludes economic viability for this catalyst, but the high selectivity for a 12-electron reaction suggests that nanostructured surfaces with multiple reactive sites in close proximity can yield novel reaction mechanisms."
How much net energy used? (Score:2)
How much energy is consumed in the process? Is this just mix two chemicals and stir or do you have to add power to make the process work? My concern is that this is another thing like corn ethanol, the production of which consumes as much or more energy than in produces with a net result of a negative benefit. It says "consume extra electricity when available" which is a rather screwy way of saying produce more power than is actually needed and then turn it into ethanol. This sounds like a movie I've al
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There is a huge difference in that Ethanol is mobile, pumping water uphill is not. You can't run a car or a truck or airplane or boat on water pumped up a hill*, but you can on ethanol.
* Unless you use that to charge batteries and then discharge in the vehicle, but by this point you are WAY below in efficiency, not to mention the cost of producing all of those battery vehicles. For the most part, cars and trucks and boats can burn ethanol with very little modification.
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No, we ate not way down in efficiency if we charge batteries. Why would we?
Obviously burning ethanol in planes, cars an boats makes sense. That was not the point of my post, however.
Cheap catalysts (Score:2)
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The catalyst is not consumed in the reaction but the catalyst most certainly can be affected by a reaction. If you don't believe me then explain why fuel cell poisoning isn't real.
The price of the catalyst is also most certainly important too.
Re:Cheap catalysts (Score:4, Informative)
"Why should I listen to someone that doesn't know the difference between affect and effect?"
I don't know. However, since I used "affected" correctly that statement has nothing to do with my post.
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Because you don't know the difference either, so perhaps it would make sense to listen?
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Because other than the misspelling they are correct.
You shouldn't get strung out over grammer and spelling mistakes. English is not always the first language of the posters here.
small problem (Score:2)
pretty dang difficult to capture CO2 only and then highly compress it so you can dissolve it in H2O and run this process.
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They already do this at some power generation stations (e.g., [1] from 2014). There may possibly be issues with suphur poisoning though.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
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The main problem is that the sun does not produce a whole lot of energy that can be captured on the night side of the earth, and we happen to consume a lot of energy when it's dark. If you overbuild capacity for daytime generation, nighttime generation is mostly solved, the big problem now is not cheap renewable energy, but rather, how to store it. Even if converting water and CO2 in to Ethanol is only 15% efficiency, you're still able to store 15% of your excess grid energy, whereas before you could only s
Startup time! (Score:3)
They should fund a startup ("carbonol.io") and Kickstarter a giant oceangoing ethanol mining drone, then lobby world governments to prevent further carbon emission cuts so as to protect their business model.
with ethanol reformer - ethanol fuel cell (Score:2)
Mars/Musk (Score:3)
With Mars having a 96% Co2 atmosphere, it seems like this technology would be a dream come true for the first human explorers to Mars.
Elon Musk said that the first visitors would have to build a propellant plant and it would take many months to make their own fuel for the return journey. I wonder how significantly this technology and the abundance of Martian CO2 would speed that up?
Obvious, but as yet unmentioned, application (Score:3)
Live in a State that mandates a silly low alcohol content for your beer? Drop in the catalyst, hook it to a battery and voila! Problem solved.
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It's almost as if you posted that without reading the article summary...
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"It's almost as if you posted that without reading the article summary..."
You must be new here, welcome.
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Filthy casuals...
Re:Cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
His/her question is good, and the summary is incomplete. It converts CO2 to CH3CH2OH at a yield of about 63%, but what CO2 concentration in the water are they assuming? Average soda concentration is about 0.12-0.15 M (moles per liter) at about 4 bar. That would mean you'd get 0.05 M alcohol (2 carbons per EtOH from one carbon in CO2, 0.5*0.63*0.15), which is 0.05 moles EtOH/55.5 moles water or about 0.08 percent alcohol by volume. That's a lot less than the ethanol conversion you'd get from corn.
It did not mention the catalyst materials cost, nor the materials processing required to make a nanomaterial.
So we'd have energy costs by compressing CO2, then converting it using the catalyst, then there would be ethanol separation costs (with requisite electricity/natural gas from the distillation columns) from water that far exceed normal ethanol separation, and the ethanol would still have about 10% water because it is an azeotrope,so then you'd need another liquid-liquid extraction...
As is the case with the other carbon dioxide conversion schemes, it's really cool chemistry, looks good in summary, but the details render it ineffective for practical use.
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They do mention they are working on refining the process. It may cost some to produce but if it reduces waste emission of carbon dioxide then if not too expensive it might be worthwhile.
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The article mentioned methanol, methane and other side reactions. The water dominates though, about 55.5 moles per liter with CO2 so little, a little bit of hydrogen won't interfere too much.
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Catalysts aren't used up so basically they're free.
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How much electricity? There is a cost associated with the process and nowhere is that cost mentioned.
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On a large scale you can't afford to feed it with lab grade water and CO2, it will foul.
Re:Cost? (Score:5, Informative)
Which efficiency?
Energy use wise, or product synthesis wise?
The summary gives the latter at just over 60%.
The former? Who knows?
I am more interested in how sensitive to poisoning the catalyst is. Would exposure to salt water damage it, for instance.
If not, then huge installations of these in the open ocean coupled with tidal force generators or wave mechanic generators for the electrical power needed could make drilling for oil obsolete, while simultaneously directly removing the cause of ocean acidification. Win win.
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I doubt that there will be much bacterial growth in an electrolysis vessel...
Depends on the conditions. You would be surprised where bacteria can manage grow. I've grown bacteria in the lab on electrically charged agar. Other than changing their color they really didn't seem to mind.
Re:Cost? (Score:5, Informative)
To collect the ethanol, the water being treated needs to be isolated from the rest of the reactant supply (aka, the ocean). The availability of local power from ocean wave generators, or tidal generators means the expense of using reverse osmosis is possible to account for. We don't need a membrane that makes clean water, just one that holds ethanol in, and that keeps plankton and microbes out.
Ethanol is a fairly large molecule (compared to salt, or co2), and microbes are downright huge in comparison.
Automated jets of ocean water against the membrane to knock plankton off every so often, coupled with a maintenance schedule, and such platforms could be extracting ethanol in huge amounts cheaply, expelling very clean ocean brine.
Assuming the catalyst can endure salt being present anyway.
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even if the catalyst wasn't poisoned, a biofilm would clog those activity sites in an open body of water.
Intuition tells me that ethanol should destroy the biofilm. Research tells me otherwise. It actually seems to encourage it.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
However, as hankwang mentioned, bacteria doesn't do so well in elecrolyzed water.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/r... [sciencedaily.com]
Algae might not be safe either:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
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If running combustion backwards was energy efficient, they could create a perpetual motion machine.
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Re:Cost? (Score:4, Informative)
The summary is misleading; a look at the paper reveals the 63% is the Faradic [wikipedia.org] efficiency, at a current of -1.2 volts.
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Er, I don't know how "at a current of" slipped in there. Volts are voltage, not current.
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The 84% selectivity seems impressive, but even after reading the wikipedia summary I don't understand what exactly Faradaic efficiency is. Does it bear any direct relationship to actual energy efficiency? I mean 64% efficiency converting electrical energy to chemical energy would be fairly impressive, but I have a feeling that's not what's being claimed.
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"Catalyst" means it isn't directly expended in the reaction. So the cost of a catalyst doesn't particularly matter. That's why there's platinum currently catalyzing your engine exhaust into CO2.
But automotive emissions catalysts commonly break or just get burned out by misuse, so their cost does matter.
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I too wonder about the efficiency. Relative to the amount of electricity that can be obtained by burning the ethanol, how much electricity is required to run the conversion? How much can be obtained relative to the amount electricity needed to dissolve CO2 in water?
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The fine article makes no mention of efficiency, only of yields.
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Don't worry, it will be made prohibitively expensive enough to keep it out of the hands of poor people.
TFA says Department of Energy discovered it. US Govt can't hold copyright, trademark, or patent, so the information is free for any bum to construct.
Re: Cost? (Score:2)
National labs are contractors and definitely violate all those things.
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Re:one in every home? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm, it seems the laws of thermodynamics are being overlooked here...
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No. There is electrolysis going on (an electric current is applied from outside) so there is your energy input to drive the reaction.
Yes. See other posts about relative efficiency. The parent seemed to be ignoring the fact that energy is required to produce the ethanol.
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It would be more efficient to simply convert the electricity.directly to room heat, unless you have periods during warm weather when electricity is very cheap and stock piling would make sense.
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> Resistance heating is not efficient by any definition
Resistance heating is nearly 100% efficient [wikipedia.org]
This conversion is 60% efficient. Likely the waste energy is heat, so running it in a house needing heat would likely get to 100%, but I doubt you would get 100% efficiency when burning that ethanol for heat.
It may make sense to do this to get CO2 out of a house (if the ethanol is burned externally.) So I could see running this in a house that used a vent-less Natural gas fireplace, to clean the internal a
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Re:one in every home? (Score:4, Interesting)
As I read it, TFA _does_ give a clue as to efficiency.
60% of the electrons are used for producing ethanol.
Equilibrium potential for the ethanol reaction is 84 mV.
The total voltage that is used is 1.2V, which is 14 times as high.
That means that only 7% of the voltage is used effectively.
This gives a total energy of a little over 4%.
In the conclusion, this is mentioned as "The overpotential (which might be lowered with the proper electrolyte, and by separating the hydrogen production to another catalyst) probably precludes economic viability for this catalyst"
So, they don't (dare to) mention efficiency directly, but data is presented by which it can be calculated.
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This is getting very strange. Surely the point here is to get ethanol when you want ethanol instead of whatever strangeness you are thinking of?
Why do that?
Not just strange - incredibly fucking dangerous to the point of insanity. I'm not just guessing I've worked in a place where carbon monoxide killed a few people.
The res
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The point is to maximize benefits. Correct, you would make ethanol to have ethanol, but you would ideally make ethanol where you can use the waste heat, and also want to remove CO2.
They are very popular, can buy them most home improvement stores in the US. It is all I use to heat my house i
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With respect such measures are nothing but cynical public relations measures meant to distract from combustion producing a lot of carbon dioxide in the first place. They are not intended to be taken seriously by anyone other than the naive. I'm no greenie, my wages come from coal and oil, so I'm not saying this due to political motivations.
As for writing about how efficient resista
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Resistance heating is very energy efficient (when measured at the point of use; there are plenty of losses in generation and transfer), it just usually isn't very cost efficient compared to other available options. However, using electricity to ultimately produce heat in the manor being discussed here will never be as energy OR cost efficient as resistance heating, unless it allows you to take advantage of a *significant* rate reduction.
As you mention, a heat pump would provide well beyond 100% (closer to 3
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It would be more efficient just to run an electric heater.
Converting electricity into fuel is only interesting if you have a surplus of electricity that's otherwise going to waste.
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Or, need a way to transport large sums of energy from where bulk generation is possible to where demand for that energy is high, and do so with minimal losses.
This looks like the latter.
It solves the problem of " how do you intend to get all that power from that coastal windfarm to the city where it is needed?"
The answer? "In a big assed fuel tanker."
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Consider instead how handy liquid fuel is to power stuff that moves.
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That's the point.
The electric grid has to maintain a fine balance between supply and demand. It is very useful to be able to store electricity from oversupply (most large power plants can't easily adjust their output). People have proposed batteries and pumped water storage to soak up excess electricity. This might be an alternative.
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The problem is that the efficiency is going to be significantly lower than the other two solutions you mentioned. Battery storage is extremely efficient and pumped storage also isn't too bad. Converting to ethanol is just the first half of the equation. Converting it back also needs to happen and there are significant losses there. The article also doesn't make any mention of efficiency, only of yields so my guess is that it isn't all that efficient.
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Yes, I agree that efficiency could be problematic. Probably lose at least 50% going each way.
H2 energy storage has the same problem. By the time you make H2 from electricity (electrolysis), compress it, transport it then convert it back to electricity (fuel cell), you only get about 20% of the energy back.
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Battery storage is extremely efficient and pumped storage also isn't too bad.
Each battery is efficient in its operation, BUT Batteries are extremely capital-intensive to purchase, to manufacture, and require precious metals such as Copper to build.
On the other hand.... in order to store Ethanol, you just need some metal tanks which are cheaper by orders of magnitude.....
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It would be more efficient just to run an electric heater.
Unless you're concerned about power outages, so you would like to store some electricity is Ethanol, which you could then burn later to power a generator or fuel-based heating system.
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Re:VODKA! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, we don't normally care if yeast die by the billions, and they're exceedingly unlikely to initiate an armed revolt to avoid starving to death.
Cheap wha? (Score:2)
These... these scimentizzes have krunk their own droolaid. Iz a CATALISH! Jush put that shizzle in my gazztank... I like the boss knockin' rythym m'whip getsess on the fleaway. C'mere, silly plant. I wants ya fur your car-bone see-quest-rashun habits. [Hic!]
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I could add this club soda to my gin, or I could use this cool catalyst to turn the club soda into... stronger gin!
Kids will be turning Sprite into kamikaze shots in their bedrooms!
The liquor cabinet's locked, and yet the child is wasted....
Pbpbpbphhhh.... itza zience pppprrojeckt, Mommmm... A P Kem-isss-Tree!
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It's Vodak. V.O.D.A.K. Bloody hell. Are you on the Internet or what?!
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I was going to post something about "carbonated water into wine" but vodka is more accurate.
I wonder if you'd still get only ethanol for the product if you applied this to carbonated sodas or sparkling fruit juices.
That "clunk"ing sound you hear ... (Score:2)
... is the BATF defecating bricks.
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service guarentees citizenship (Score:2)
I'm doing my part!
Would you like to know more?
Faradic efficiency (Score:3)
So what happens to the other 37 procent? If you keep adding CO2 to the water, re-saturating it, doesn't the reaction just keep going?
That's faradic efficiency [wikipedia.org]. The remaining 37% go to heat, and perhaps other by-products.
The paper points out that CO, H2, and CH4 are made at various other voltages, maybe some of the remaining 37% is in useful by-products.
(I've only skimmed the paper - need more time to read and digest.)
You need both (Score:5, Informative)
For this reaction, you need BOTH CO2 (from burning fossil fuels) AND "free energy" (noon solar on cloudless days).
The otherwise wasted energy from the unreliable renewable sources is used to convert CO2 into fuel.
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It's all well and good to get excited over something like this, but if it's going to do more harm than good then what's the point? For all we know it may take so much electricity to make this practical that trying to supply it all with so-called 'renewable' sources just isn't practical in itself.
Oh and by the way, is solar, wind, and what-not actually carbon-negative, once you figure in everything that has to be done to produce and implement solar panels,
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No. Wind and solar are NOT carbon-negative.
And it is REALLY simple to prove:
1. They don't consume CO2 to produce energy
2. End
And if you use coal/petrol to produce any part of the turbines/panels in any stage of the production they will be carbon positive.
But what really matters here is not that they are carbon positive, it is that they produce so little carbon when compared to all other sources that it doesn't really matters...In the end, they are displacing something hugely worse so they are a net positive
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it has to be compressed as in like a tank of CO2 from a gas supplier uses for carbonating soda pop. then run a carbonator in water to make basically soda water, then run it through this catalyst.
it is a very very complex process
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>> it is a very very complex process
The most difficult part is stopping everyone drinking the product before you can get it to the converter.
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No, this only accounts for the production of ethanol. Additional energy is needed to extract the CO2 as well as separating ethanol from water, which is still fairly energy intensive.
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What language is "American" ? Perhaps you meant to login as "FuckingIdiot' rather than "RightWingNutJob"
Re:Once again, American site (Score:4, Interesting)
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