The effort to harvest atmospheric carbons and transform the greenhouse gases into renewable fuels has taken one step closer to practicality due to new research out of Monash University.

Through the novel combination of cheap materials to develop an energy efficient catalyst, the researchers believe they could electrochemically reduce carbon dioxide into syngas. This produced syngas would be comprised of a combination of carbon monoxide and hydrogen—the elements widely used as the starting point to produce sustainable fuels and materials.

“Our research found that a combination of cheap materials—Molybdenum Sulphide catalytic nano-particles with a conductive layer of graphene and a well-known polymer called polyethylenimine acted together to create this energy efficient catalyst. Each component in the catalyst played a specific role in the reaction and it was only when the three were combined that the energy efficiency of the process was realized,” said Jie Zhang, lead author of the study.

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In a practical effort to address climate change, researchers are looking at the possibility to capture harmful greenhouse gasses and transforming them into something useful for society. Recently, researchers from the University of South Carolina started exploring this topic, opening the door for more research in green fuels produced by carbon. Now, a team from the University of South Australia is taking that concept and applying nanoporous carbon nitride to help solve global warming.

With carbon dioxide levels at their highest in 650,000 years, scientists are developing innovative ways to help contain the greenhouse gas. The team at the University of South Australia, led by Ajayan Vinu, is working to capture and convert carbon dioxide molecules with the help of nanoporous materials.

“Their interesting properties—a semiconducting framework structure and ordered pores—make them exciting candidates for the capture and conversion of [carbon dioxide] molecules into methanol which can then be used as a source of green energy with the help of sunlight and water,” Vinu said.

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Researchers combine electrochemical investigations with measurement methodologies to develop a new theory to the aging process of lithium ion batteries.
Image: Claudia Niranen/TUM

Lithium ion batteries affect everything from small electrical devices to airplanes, yet the battery’s aging process creates limitations to storage capacity. While researchers have not yet been able to determine what causes aging in lithium ion batteries, a research team has made new developments to offer more insight to this downfall and potentially create more youthful batteries.

The study, recently published in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES), describes newly discovered factors that speed up the aging process in lithium ion batteries. This research is especially important in light of efforts in renewable energy, where this energy storage technology could be interwoven with the grid to help bolster efforts in wind and solar.

This from a press release:

The research group determined two key mechanisms for the loss of capacity during operation: The active lithium in the cell is slowly used up in various side reactions and is thus no longer available. The process is very temperature dependent: At 25 °C the effect is relatively weak but becomes quite strong at 60 °C. When charging and discharging cells with a higher upper cut off potential (4.6 V), cell resistance increases rapidly. The transition metals deposited on the anode may increase the conductivity of the pacifying layer and thereby speed up the decomposition of the electrolyte.

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Researchers across the globe have been investing more and more effort into developing new materials to power the next generation of devices. With the population growing and energy demands rising, the need for smaller, faster, and more efficient batteries is more prevalent than ever.

While some researchers are attempting to develop complex material combinations to tackle this issue, researchers from Rice University are going back to basics by developing a clay-based electrolyte.

Utilizing clay as a primary material in a lithium ion battery could address current issues that the battery has with high temperature performance. With clay, the researchers were able to supply stable electrical power in environments with temperatures up 120°C. The addition of clay to the electrode could allow lithium ion batteries to function in harsh environments including space, defense, and oil and gas applications.

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On October 26^th, 2015, the ECS British Columbia Student Chapter held its 1^st Annual Academic Workshop.

The workshop was held at the Molecular Biology and Chemistry Building located at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada. It attracted nearly 40 attendees from all different departments and disciplines at The University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and Tsinghua University, China. Also in attendance was the Chair of ECS Canada Section, Dr. Michael Eickerling.

The attendees were given a detailed presentation from Dr. Andrei Kulikovsky on the topic of Physical Models of Impedance Spectroscopy for PEM fuel cells. Dr. Kulikovsky visited all the way from Germany for the workshop, where he is involved in modeling fuel cell components and stacks. Within the past fifteen years, Dr. Kulikovsky has published more than seventy research papers.

In 2012, he published a one-of-a-kind book called Analytical Modeling of Fuel Cells. This book is the first monograph on modeling of polymer electrolyte, direct methanol and solid oxide fuel cells performance. Dr. Kulikovsky’s current research interests include modeling of fuel cells and catalyst layers.

Dr. Andrei Kulikovsky beginning the workshop.

Attendees keenly listening to the talk and taking notes.

Congratulations on a successful workshop!

When it comes to energy storage, hydrogen is becoming more and more promising. From hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to the “artificial leaf” to the transformation of waste heat into hydrogen, researchers are looking to hydrogen for answers to the growing demand for energy storage.

At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), researchers are using hydrogen to make lithium ion batteries operate longer and have faster transport rates.

In a response to the need for higher performance batteries, the researchers began by looking for a way to achieve better capacity, voltage, and energy density. Those qualities are primarily determined by the binding between lithium ions and electrode material. Small changes to the structure and chemistry of the electrode can mean big things for the qualities of the lithium ion battery.

The research team from LLNL discovered that by subtly changing the electrode, treating it with hydrogen, lithium ion batteries could have higher capacities and faster transport levels.

“These findings provide qualitative insights in helping the design of graphene-based materials for high-power electrodes,” said Morris Wang, an LLNL materials scientist and co-author of the paper.

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The new, inexpensive catalyst could lead to the transformation of CO₂ into green fuel.
Image: Angewandte Chemie

On a global scale, carbon dioxide (CO₂) is the number one contributor to dangerous greenhouse gas emissions. Increasing levels of CO₂ accelerate the devastating effects of climate change, such as rising sea levels and a higher global temperature. In order to reduce these emissions, researchers are tackling projects from the implementation of a clean energy infrastructure to scrubbing CO₂ from the atmosphere. The researchers from the University of South Carolina are exploring even another innovative way to reduce CO₂ emissions by turning the harmful byproduct into fuel.

The team, led by ECS member Xiao-Dong Zhou, is looking for a way to harness CO₂ emissions that already exist in the environment and use green technologies to inject energy and produce fuel.

Making Green Fuels

While 100 percent renewable energy may be the ultimate answer for the energy infrastructure, it is difficult for industrialized countries that heavily depend on traditional combustion technologies to make that transition so rapidly. The implementation of wind and solar technologies on the large scale also raises question to grid efficiency, reliability, and storage.

One solution to this issue is by using technologies such as solar and wind to turn harmful CO₂ emissions into clean, usable fuels.

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More than half energy produced annually—whether it’s heat, gas, biomass, or methane—is wasted. Harvesting the wasted  heat energy could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 17 percent. Researchers from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Penn State are looking for new, environmentally friendly ways to harvest and recycle this wasted energy in an effort to create hydrogen gas.

“Existing methods are already very effective at making hydrogen gas,” says Bruce Logan, Evan Pugh Professor of Environmental Engineering. “The problem is that these methods consume fossil fuels in order to generate enough energy to create the hydrogen gas.”

By producing hydrogen gas via waste heat, the researchers eliminate the need for fossil fuels in production.

“Since the new system runs on waste heat, it is effectively carbon neutral and fossil fuel neutral,” says Logan.

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While we typically work to preserve the environment, there are some aspects that cause more harm than good. Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are one of these environmentally hazardous parts of nature, severely impacting human health, the ecosystem, and the economy.

While HABs put countless people at risk though polluted drinking water, researchers are now attempting to create some good from this negative. Through heating the algal at a very high temperature in argon gas, HABs can be converted into a material known as hard carbon. Typically made from petroleum, hard carbon also has development potential through biomass. Due to the material’s qualities and capabilities, hard carbons have the potential to be used as high-capacity, low-cost electrodes for sodium-ion batteries.

“Harmful algal blooms, caused by cyanobacteria (or so called ‘blue-green algae’), severely threaten humans, livestock, and wildlife, leading to illness and sometimes even death,” says Da Deng, co-author of the recent study. “The Toledo water crisis in 2014 caused by HABs in Lake Erie is a vivid example of their powerful and destructive impact. The existing technologies to mitigate HABs are considered a ‘passive’ technology and have certain limitations. It would significantly and broadly impact our society and environment if alternative technologies could be developed to convert the HABs into functional high-value products.”

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Inspired by nature, Shelley Minteer and her research group at the University of Utah are looking for a way to merge electrochemistry and biology. With a little inspiration, Minteer aims to bring to life innovative devices that can be applied to anything from fuel cells to electrosynthesis.

“We’re looking at biological inspiration,” says Minteer. “As electrochemists, we’re looking at things in terms of the molecular biology of living cells and seeing how we can make a better electrochemical cell from that.”

Inspiration from Biology

The sciences of biology and electrochemistry tend to have many fundamental concepts in common. On the biological side, one can look at how humans eat and metabolize food in a comparative way to the functions of a fuel cell. Additionally, plants and electrosynthesis work similarly in the way they take in CO₂ and produce fuel.

“As a group, we’re looking to see if we could use biology as our inspiration to do electrochemistry, and that has taken us into a lot of different applications,” says Minteer.

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