| Title | Ultraviolet Light Could Provide a Powerful New Source of Green Fuel | |
| Date | Friday February 22 2019, @01:23PM | |
| Author | Fnord666 | |
| Topic | ||
| from the disco-is-back dept. | ||
Methanol—a colorless liquid that can be made from agricultural waste—has long been touted as a green alternative to fossil fuels. But it’s toxic and only has half the energy as the same volume of gasoline. Now, researchers report they’ve created a potentially cheap way to use sunlight to convert methanol to ethanol, a more popular alternative fuel that’s less harmful and carries more energy.
The new report is “great work” says Zhongmin Liu, a chemist at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics in China who was not involved with the research. If the process can be optimized and scaled up, he says, “It has the potential to change the world.”
The notion of converting methanol to ethanol isn’t new. Companies already have a trio of chemical processes that do so. But these require adding heat, pressure, and toxic additives, such as carbon monoxide. Companies can also make ethanol directly by fermenting corn kernels or sugarcane. But growing those crops requires precious farmland that could otherwise grow food. Researchers and companies have also come up with ways to convert agricultural wastes into ethanol. So far, however, these have proved too costly to be competitive.
| Links |
printed from SoylentNews, Ultraviolet Light Could Provide a Powerful New Source of Green Fuel on 2024-04-19 20:31:51