Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Novel catalysis approach reduces carbon dioxide to methane
A growing number of scientists are looking for fast, cost-effective ways to convert carbon dioxide gas into valuable chemicals and fuels.
Now, an international team of researchers has revealed a new approach that utilizes a series of catalytic reactions to electrochemically reduce carbon dioxide to methane, the main ingredient in natural gas, eliminating an intermediate step usually needed in the reduction process.
"We want to supply renewable electricity and take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it to something else in one step," said Bingjun Xu , a University of Delaware assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering. "This is a key contribution to this vision."
The team's results were published in the journal Nature Communications on July 26, 2019. Two of the study authors are based at UD: Xu and postdoctoral associate Xiaoxia Chang. Another study author, Qi Lu of Tsinghua University in China, was formerly a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UD.
The paper's authors also include Haochen Zhen from Tsinghua University, Jingguang Chen from Columbia University, William Goddard III from the California Institute of Technology and Mu-Jeng Cheng from National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan.
More information: Haochen Zhang et al. Computational and experimental demonstrations of one-pot tandem catalysis for electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction to methane, Nature Communications (2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11292-9
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @03:35PM (17 children)
Use it as fuel? How much energy does it take to convert the CO2 into Methane and where does that energy come from? and when you ignite methane you get CO2 so I can't imagine that the reverse reaction uses less energy than the original reaction.
Isn't methane a stronger greenhouse gas than CO2? So what are you going to do with all that methane that you can't do with CO2.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday August 04 2019, @03:58PM (2 children)
It could be relevant to plans to produce methane+oxygen from water and CO2 on Mars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Mars_transportation_infrastructure#Mars_propellant_plant_and_base [wikipedia.org]
The new process could be more energy efficient and leave the water ice to be used for oxygen only.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Sunday August 04 2019, @06:06PM (1 child)
SpaceX star hopper / ship uses methane. Mars has lots of CO2. It has plenty of time + sunlight for energy while awaiting the arrival of the puny humans who will want a ride back to Earth.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday August 04 2019, @09:30PM
There are a number of factors, like energy needed, payload mass for the equipment, cost of the equipment, and time.
26 months to fill up one Starship with propellant seems pretty slow. Astronauts may only need a fraction of the tank to return to Earth. But if we are sending lots of Starships, they could just accumulate on the surface if there is only one propellant factory.
Not saying the new approach is superior, but it is worth a look.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @04:20PM (2 children)
Seems pretty obvious to me, use the methane to get more grant money...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @05:29PM (1 child)
Who modded that touche? JFC people
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 05 2019, @03:00AM
You could have modded it funny to overwrite the touche, just say'n.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Sunday August 04 2019, @04:33PM (2 children)
A point, but not necessarily a good one. You could run it off solar cells in a remote location, and use the methane to power a vehicle. (Well, methane's not a great fuel, but they were talking about a chain of chemical processes, and up converting methane to ethane isn't impossibly difficult. I don't know about butane or propane.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @06:47PM (1 child)
"You could run it off solar cells in a remote location"
There are other reactions you can do off solar cells as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @07:51PM
Like cancer! Oh wait, that is from wind turbines. /s
(Score: 4, Informative) by theluggage on Sunday August 04 2019, @04:54PM (4 children)
You're right that it would be an energy storage/transport mechanism rather than an energy source as such - a bit like hydrogen or, for that matter, batteries. Make it in the sun-baked desert, at the hydroelectric plant by the giant waterfall, the nasty nuclear reactor miles from civilisation and then pipe it to where you need the energy (unlike electricity, you don't waste it heating up the long-distance power cables).
The bonus is - unlike hydrogen, which is horribly tricky to store and transport - there is already an established international network of pipes, tankers and storage vessels to store and transport methane (AKA Natural gas) all the way down your street and into your domestic cooker/central heating boiler.
But, yeah, somebody still needs to do the math.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @06:56PM
I guess you would have to compare methane as a means of storing energy to other means of storing energy.
Solar panels can already be used to take electricity and store or transfer it to other locations. Is there enough solar energy that's not used right away to be useful for this endeavor, what is the cost of storing and transporting methane as an energy storage medium when compared to other methods. How much energy does it take to transport methane from one location to another in opposed to the way we currently do it (ie: transporting electricity via power lines does result in a loss of energy due to the resistance across the power lines but it also costs energy to transport methane around. We need to do a cost comparison).
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 05 2019, @01:31AM (2 children)
If you think the transport of a fluid in a pipe is lossless, you are quite wrong: on top of the friction losses [wikipedia.org] you have losses caused by pipe turns and the elements controlling the flow [wikipedia.org].
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Monday August 05 2019, @10:26AM (1 child)
Nothing in this world is lossless, and of course it takes energy to pump stuff through pipes. However, I'd be very surprised if the losses involved in pumping high energy density fuel like methane through a pipe compare to the resistive heating in electricity lines (...plus the losses in transformers etc. stepping it up/down to a high enough voltage to make those transition losses tolerable). If someone's done the comparison and has math to the contrary, I won't argue...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 05 2019, @11:49AM
Maintenance costs may make all the difference:
1. the transformer's maintenance is much less, with no moving parts.
2. line vs pipeline maintenance costs - aluminium wires on steel core vs high tensile steel pipes (periodic inspection of the latter I believe are customary)
3. insurance cost - given the amount of destruction a rupture of a pipe carrying highly flammable gas pumped at 1100-1200psi can cause, I reckon insurance cost is bound to make a difference.
Otherwise, here's what I found in re energy budget [eng-tips.com]
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Sunday August 04 2019, @06:52PM (2 children)
However, hopefully, little of it will just leak into the atmosphere. Most will be burned as fuel.
So CH4+2xO2=CO2+2xH20.
And there we go, from 4 molecules of Methane to a single CO2 molecule.
The molecular weight of Methane is 16.043, we're dealing with 4:1 so let's multiply that by 4; 64.172 is the weight of the methane burned to produce 44.01 equivalent units (kg/kmol or lb/lbmol the ratio is the same) of CO2.
So it's a win, from a greenhouse gas perspective at least, to burn the methane as fuel rather than just dumping it into the air, for sure.
If you ignore all the energy spent on the initial conversion process. That sounds like a pretty huge caveat unless this is to be confined to very niche applications.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @07:04PM (1 child)
> So CH4+2xO2=CO2+2xH20.
> And there we go, from 4 molecules of Methane to a single CO2 molecule.
Um, no. ONE molecule of methane to ONE molecule of CO2.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday August 04 2019, @07:09PM
So that's actually a little over twice as much CO2 out by weight.
That's still a win, versus releasing the methane, because methane is so much more effective as a greenhouse gas. In the first 5 years it's estimated to be 100 times more effective in this role, and even at a 20 year window it's still about 70 times as effective.
But again, you have to look at how much energy is used for that initial transformation, and how it's being produced.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @04:26PM (15 children)
If CO2 is evil, methane is 30x worse: satanic.
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Sunday August 04 2019, @04:36PM (14 children)
That's only if it's released into the atmosphere. If you want to burn it for energy (or chemical processing) you don't want to be releasing it.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @04:40PM (13 children)
It is the height of hubris to think you can control satan. There are many movies about this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @04:47PM (1 child)
Ah, anti climate change troll job. Such willfully ignorant shite, I hope there is an afterlife just so you get to look back in shame.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @04:51PM
So now being anti climate change is trolling? We all need to advocate for climate change to wipe out humanity to fit in with our peer group now?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @04:50PM (10 children)
But what if I agree with Satan's individualist and capitalist views?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 04 2019, @05:14PM (8 children)
Then you're a Biblical illiterate: "s[h]'t'n" is a Semitic consonant cluster that means something like accuser or obstacle-placer, compare Koine "diabolos" (dia/across + ballein/to hurl projectiles, figuratively "mudslinger"). Notably, Satan is one of God's deputies and is not the same being as Lucifer, who himself was likely a metaphor for one of the kings of Babylon.
The figure you have in mind owes more to Milton than the Bible, much like how the supposedly-ancient Wiccan religion is younger than nuclear power.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @06:07PM (5 children)
Who gave the knowledge of good and evil to mankind according to the book?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @06:15PM
Al Gore
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday August 04 2019, @06:41PM (2 children)
Nahash.
http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Nahash.html
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @07:54PM
And who gave it to Nahash?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @10:45PM
Are Satan, Lucifer and Nahash united like the Holy Ghost, God and the Christ are?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 05 2019, @10:31PM
God, indirectly, by placing that idiot tree there, of all possible places. And putting the talking...four-legged...extremely intelligent...snake in it. Knowing what would happen before he did any of that.
If there is any character in all of human literature who steps on his own dick and sends himself tumbling down his own front stairs more often than Yahweh I haven't seen him yet. The God of the Abrahamic religions makes all of his own problems, in the most literal possible sense of the phrase...and of course blames everyone and everything but himself. And this is the thing 5+ billion people worship. We are *fucked.*
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday August 05 2019, @04:45PM (1 child)
In the earliest usages, yes, and it is best to not even capitalise it, IMHO, as it's not a name, it's a job description. (One could go all the way to saying an indefinite article is appropriate, but that's not really the case given the richness of the tropes we have available to us: e.g. "Trouble in sector 2, you say? I'll send out security to take a look." (I guess this is metonymy, with the substitution of a role to refer to a person who has that role).)
However, later (OT) texts did transform the abstract role into the concrete identity, I forget precisely where. (You seem better read up on this than me - if you know off the top of your head where the transition started, I'd be grateful.)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday August 05 2019, @06:23PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @05:15PM
You're a dumbass. Sadly the religious morals seem to have been burned out of this new age of greedy idiocy. I think we are seeing why religions developed, without the heavy hand of GOD too many humans devolve to animal behavior. Just lazy bastards really, thinking is tough and simple selfish logic is easy and comforting.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @05:05PM
So, they've discovered a better way to convert what plants need for photosynthesis, into cow farts.
Why do so many people hate plants?