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The carbon dioxide we're currently dumping into the atmosphere started out as atmospheric carbon dioxide hundreds of millions of years ago. It took lots of plants and millions of years of geological activity to convert it to fossil fuels. One obvious way of dealing with our atmospheric carbon is to shorten that cycle, finding a way to quickly convert carbon dioxide into a usable fuel.
Unfortunately, carbon dioxide is a very stable molecule, so it takes a lot of energy to split it. Most reactions that do so end up producing carbon monoxide, which is more reactive and a useful starting material, but it's far from a fuel. Now, though, researchers have discovered a catalyst that, with a little help from light, can take CO2 and make methane, the primary fuel in natural gas. While the reaction is slow and inefficient, there are a number of ways it could be optimized.
The work started out with a catalyst that converts carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide when supplied with a source of electrons. The catalyst is a complex ring of carbon-based molecules that latch on to an iron atom at the center. The iron interacts with carbon dioxide, allowing hydrogen atoms from water to break one of the carbon-oxygen bonds, liberating water. The iron loses some electrons in the process, and these have to be re-supplied for the cycle to start again. Typically, that supply comes in the form of a separate chemical that readily gives up some electrons.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday July 20 2017, @01:27PM (11 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday July 20 2017, @01:59PM (2 children)
Oxygen is only an oxidant so it doesn't burn without fuel.
compiling...
(Score: 1) by Arik on Thursday July 20 2017, @08:13PM (1 child)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 20 2017, @11:30PM
Yes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tcP9SLKEG4 [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 20 2017, @03:38PM
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 20 2017, @09:00PM (5 children)
Oxygen is a by-product of photosynthesis - it's actually plant-waste and the early photosynthesizers raised the oxygen levels of the atmosphere to dangerously high levels.
Of course, it's really nice to have if you're trying to live like an animal...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Thursday July 20 2017, @10:34PM (4 children)
There we go. The natural process that converts CO2 and sunlight into oxygen and water vapor, without which life as we know it is impossible. Congratulations.
"early photosynthesizers raised the oxygen levels of the atmosphere to dangerously high levels."
Which allows for our sort of life to develop.
Yes, oxygen is dangerous. It permits combustion. Without it, no forest fires. Also no animal life, and the substances we think of as 'fuel' - inert, useless.
Also not a "greenhouse gas" btw.
Now think about this. We're supposedly trying to get CO2 out of the atmosphere because it's a greenhouse gas. And yes, technically, it is, but it's a very mild one. Methane is roughly 30 times more of a greenhouse gas though. EPA figures about 82% of greenhouse gas release is CO2, 9% Methane, 9% other... but they figure the actual effect of that Methane is several times as much as all that CO2. So turning CO2 into Methane, if this is supposed to be about climate change, sounds like a really bad idea.
Oh, but the Methane is fuel! Well, yes, yes it is. It's a fuel that's already available in abundance from other sources, and it's not a very efficient fuel, but it is a fuel nonetheless. So you'll burn it, that'll take care of the problem, right?
Well, no not really, because when you burn Methane, you get CO2 and H2O. So you're pretty much right back where you started.
I mean the pure chemistry involved is interesting, but the suggestion that this is going to be of great practical benefit in the short run does not seem to be accurate at all.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 21 2017, @02:08AM
The great practical benefit comes if they can make it economically feasible.
Painting it with a big green brush is just part of swinging the economics to the + side.
Net benefit to the CO2 issue, less than zero.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday July 21 2017, @11:21AM (2 children)
Not really - you've done useful work in the process, and that fuel might otherwise have come from oil in the ground.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday July 22 2017, @02:32AM (1 child)
You have, but that's saying very little. You invested a lot of work too. What's the net? Is it better than alternatives? Is it even positive at all?
"and that fuel might otherwise have come from oil in the ground."
Or straight out of a heifers tailpipe. You want methane? There's tons of it already being released into the atmosphere, available for the cost of recovery, already. You think you're going to convert CO2 into methane for less input than it would cost to simply collect it where it's already bubbling out into the atmosphere? As the old magic 8 ball put it, signs point to no. Likely the only profit in this process will be the grant money it eats.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday July 28 2017, @09:19AM
Ah, I wasn't clear. I meant the fuel has done useful work. It's a bit like saying If you drive for a living, you've burnt fuel you've ended up back where you started anyway which might be true, but that fuel was burnt 'for a reason' as it were.
I'm no expert, but this seems a valid concern.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday July 21 2017, @12:49AM
Don't worry, this reaction results in oxygen as well, they were just more interested in discussing the methane.