Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a major contributor to climate change and a significant product of many human activities, notably industrial manufacturing. A major goal in the energy field has been to chemically convert emitted CO2 into valuable chemicals or fuels. But while CO2 is available in abundance, it has not yet been widely used to generate value-added products. Why not?
The reason is that CO2 molecules are highly stable and therefore not prone to being chemically converted to a different form. Researchers have sought materials and device designs that could help spur that conversion, but nothing has worked well enough to yield an efficient, cost-effective system.
[...] The challenge begins with the first step in the CO2 conversion process. Before being transformed into a useful product, CO2 must be chemically converted into carbon monoxide (CO). [...]
To explore opportunities for improving this process, Furst and her research group focused on the electrocatalyst, a material that enhances the rate of a chemical reaction without being consumed in the process. The catalyst is key to successful operation. [...]
But there's one stumbling block: The catalyst and the CO2 must meet on the surface of the electrode for the reaction to occur. [...]
[...] What was needed was a way to position the small-molecule catalyst firmly and accurately on the electrode and then release it when it degrades. For that task, Furst turned to what she and her team regard as a kind of "programmable molecular Velcro": deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA.
[...] Her approach depends on a well-understood behavior of DNA called hybridization. The familiar DNA structure is a double helix that forms when two complementary strands connect. When the sequence of bases (the four building blocks of DNA) in the individual strands match up, hydrogen bonds form between complementary bases, firmly linking the strands together.
Using that behavior for catalyst immobilization involves two steps. First, the researchers attach a single strand of DNA to the electrode. Then they attach a complementary strand to the catalyst that is floating in the aqueous solution. When the latter strand gets near the former, the two strands hybridize; they become linked by multiple hydrogen bonds between properly paired bases. As a result, the catalyst is firmly affixed to the electrode by means of two interlocked, self-assembled DNA strands, one connected to the electrode and the other to the catalyst.
Better still, the two strands can be detached from one another. "The connection is stable, but if we heat it up, we can remove the secondary strand that has the catalyst on it," says Furst. "So we can de-hybridize it. That allows us to recycle our electrode surfaces—without having to disassemble the device or do any harsh chemical steps."
[...] Furst and her team have now demonstrated that their DNA-based approach combines the advantages of the traditional solid-state catalysts and the newer small-molecule ones. In their experiments, they achieved the highly efficient chemical conversion of CO2 to CO and also were able to control the mix of products formed. And they believe that their technique should prove scalable: DNA is inexpensive and widely available, and the amount of catalyst required is several orders of magnitude lower when it's immobilized using DNA.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday September 12 2022, @09:11PM
Let's develop some living organisms that take CO2 and stuff they can find in ordinary dirt (or even better, manure, so we can deal with our global giant-vats-of-poo problem) and turn them into food. Everybody needs food!
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.