SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Uribe-Romo and his team of students created a way to trigger a chemical reaction in a synthetic material called metal-organic frameworks (MOF) that breaks down carbon dioxide into harmless organic materials. Think of it as an artificial photosynthesis process similar to the way plants convert carbon dioxide (CO2) and sunlight into food. But instead of producing food, Uribe-Romo's method produces solar fuel.
To see an explanation see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdTuwe2SruA
It's something scientists around the world have been pursuing for years, but the challenge is finding a way for visible light to trigger the chemical transformation. Ultraviolet rays have enough energy to allow the reaction in common materials such as titanium dioxide, but UVs make up only about 4 percent of the light Earth receives from the sun. The visible range -- the violet to red wavelengths -- represent the majority of the sun's rays, but there are few materials that pick up these light colors to create the chemical reaction that transforms CO2 into fuel.
F. Uribe-Romo et al. Systematic variation of the optical bandgap in titanium based isoreticular metal–organic frameworks for photocatalytic reduction of CO2 under blue light J. Mater. Chem. A, 2017 DOI: 10.1039/C7TA00437K
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheSouthernDandy on Thursday April 27 2017, @04:33PM
But instead of producing food, Uribe-Romo's method produces solar fuel.
Because nothing makes an engine race like...formic acid.
The literature is brimming with ways to do this relatively trivial two-electron reduction. Even ways to couple a light field to supply the energy. Then what? Making the C-C bonds to produce something that resembles "fuel" is the hard part. Avoiding that, and simply reducing formic acid to formaldehyde, then methanol (which could feed the MTG process [wikipedia.org]) also presents challenges for scale. This is pure advertising for grant money.
Even if they had produced CO, which is a lot more agreeable to the petrochemical industry as a synthetic fuel feedstock, at best it's a drop in the bucket. Look at South Africa, which has probably the largest Fischer-Tropsch industry in the world. They can supply a relatively impoverished country with just enough fuel to keep it running. And that's technology accepted and proven since WWII.
As much as I'd love for synthesis to provide a meaningful solution to renewable fuels, it doesn't scale to modern demands. That's not to say we shouldn't work on it, but the advanced materials schemes are BS. Appreciate them for the cutting edge basic science, but don't present them as meaningful to solving any energy or climate problems in this lifetime.