Sources Contact Advanced Search Tutorials

An Interest In:

Web News this Week

Search Archive

Some of Our Sources

View All Sources

Help Webnuz

Referal links:

October 18, 2016 08:00 pm

CO2 To Ethanol In One Step With Cheap Catalyst

Reader networkBoy writes: Boffins at ORNL (Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory) have discovered a simple and cheap catalyst that can take CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) dissolved in solution with water and at room temperature convert it to ethanol with 60%+ yields. They envision it as a way to store surplus power from green energy plants and then burning it to fill in lulls in supply.From the report:The team used a catalyst made of carbon, copper and nitrogen and applied voltage to trigger a complicated chemical reaction that essentially reverses the combustion process. With the help of the nanotechnology-based catalyst which contains multiple reaction sites, the solution of carbon dioxide dissolved in water turned into ethanol with a yield of 63 percent. Typically, this type of electrochemical reaction results in a mix of several different products in small amounts. "We're taking carbon dioxide, a waste product of combustion, and we're pushing that combustion reaction backwards with very high selectivity to a useful fuel," Rondinone said. "Ethanol was a surprise -- it's extremely difficult to go straight from carbon dioxide to ethanol with a single catalyst."

Slashdot

Slashdot was originally created in September of 1997 by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. Today it is owned by Geeknet, Inc..

More About this Source Visit Slashdot