A team of researchers from the University of Toronto is looking to give wasted materials new value by developing a new catalyst that could help recycle carbon dioxide into plastic.

According to a new study, the researchers have successfully used a new technique to efficiently convert carbon dioxide to ethylene, which can then be processed to make polyethylene, the most common plastic used in making packaging, bottles, and toys.

By using a copper catalyst, the team was able to achieve the desired result of ethylene production. However, controlling the catalyst was one of the technological challenges the team had to overcome.

(more…)

Scientists have found a way to make their asphalt-based sorbents better at capturing carbon dioxide from gas wells: Adding water.

The lab of chemist James Tour, a chair in chemistry as well as a professor of computer science and of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice University, discovered that treating grains of inexpensive Gilsonite asphalt with water allows the material to adsorb more than two times its weight in the greenhouse gas. The treated asphalt selects carbon dioxide over valuable methane at a ratio of more than 200-to-1.

The material performs well at ambient temperatures and under the pressures typically found at wellheads. When the pressure abates, the material releases the carbon dioxide, which can then be stored, sold for other industrial uses, or pumped back downhole.

Natural gas at the wellhead typically contains between 3 and 7 percent carbon dioxide, but at some locations may contain up to 70 percent. Oil and gas producers traditionally use one of two strategies to sequester carbon dioxide: physically through the use of membranes or solid sorbents like zeolites or porous carbons, or chemically through filtering with liquid amine, a derivative of ammonia.

(more…)

Carbon dioxide accounts for over 80 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. For many, carbon dioxide emissions account for significant environmental issues, but for researchers like Haotian Wang of Harvard University, carbon dioxide could be the perfect raw material.

According to a new study, Wang and his team are well on the way to developing a system that uses renewable electricity to electrochemically transform carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide. The carbon monoxide could then be used in a host of industrial processes, such as plastics production, creating hydrocarbon products, or as a fuel itself.

This from Harvard University:

The energy conversion efficiency from sunlight to CO can be as high as 12.7%, more than one order of magnitude higher than natural photosynthesis.

(more…)

Researchers from Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland have successfully created food out of electricity and carbon dioxide, which they hope could one day be used to help solve world hunger.

According to reports, the single-cell protein can be produced wherever renewable energy is available, with uses ranging from food to animal feed.

“In practice, all the raw materials are available from the air. In the future, the technology can be transported to, for instance, deserts and other areas facing famine,” co-author of the research, Juha-Pekka Pitkanen, said in a statement. “One possible alternative is a home reactor, a type of domestic appliance that the consumer can use to produce the needed protein.”

The researchers achieved this result by exposing those raw materials and putting them in a small “protein reactor.” After exposing it to electrolysis, chemical decomposition occurs. After about two weeks, one gram of powder made of 50 percent protein and 25 percent carbohydrate.

(more…)

The global development of industry, technology, and the transportation sector has resulted in massive consumption of fossil fuels. As these fuels are burned, emissions are released—namely carbon dioxide. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, combustion of petroleum-based products resulted in 6,587 million metric tons of carbon dioxide released into the environment in 2015. But what if we could capture the greenhouse gas and not only convert it, but potentially make a huge profit?

That’s exactly what ECS member Stuart Licht is looking to do.

In a new study, Licht and his team demonstrate using carbon dioxide and solar thermal energy to produce high yields of millimeter-lengths carbon nanotube (CNT) wool at a cost of $660 per ton. According to marketplace values, these CNTs, which have applications ranging from textiles to cement, could then be sold for up to $400,000 per ton.

“We have introduced a new class of materials called ‘Carbon Nanotube Wool,’ which are the first CNTs that can be directly woven into a cloth, as they are of macroscopic length and are cheap to produce,” Licht, a chemistry professor at George Washington University, tells Phys.org. “The sole reactant to produce the CNT wools is the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.”

(more…)

A new study describes the mechanics behind an early key step in artificially activating carbon dioxide so that it can rearrange itself to become the liquid fuel ethanol.

Solving this chemical puzzle may one day lead to cleaner air and renewable fuel.

The scientists’ ultimate goal is to convert harmful carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere into beneficial liquid fuel. Currently, it is possible to make fuels out of CO2—plants do it all the time—but researchers are still trying to crack the problem of artificially producing the fuels at large enough scales to be useful.

Theorists at Caltech used quantum mechanics to predict what was happening at atomic scales, while experimentalists at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) used X-ray studies to analyze the steps of the chemical reaction.

“One of our tasks is to determine the exact sequence of steps for breaking apart water and CO2 into atoms and piecing them back together to form ethanol and oxygen,” says William Goddard professor of chemistry, materials science, and applied physics, who led the Caltech team. “With these new studies, we have better ideas about how to do that.”

(more…)

A team of researchers from Texas A&M University is looking to take the negative impact of excessive levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and turn it into a positive with renewable hydrocarbon fuels.

Greenhouse gasses trap heat in the atmosphere and therefore impact global temperatures, making the planet warmer. Carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas, is emitted into the atmosphere upon burning fossil fuels, solid waste, and wood products, and makes up 81 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

“We’re essentially trying to convert CO2 and water, with the use of the sun, into solar fuels in a process called artificial photosynthesis,” says Ying Li, principal investigator and ECS member. “In this process, the photo-catalyst material has some unique properties and acts as a semiconductor, absorbing the sunlight which excites the electrons in the semiconductor and gives them the electric potential to reduce water and CO2 into carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which together can be converted to liquid hydrocarbon fuels.”

This from Texas A&M University:

The first step of the process involves capturing CO2 from emissions sources such as power plants that contribute to one-third of the global carbon emissions. As of yet, there is no technology capable of capturing the CO2, and at the same time re-converting it back into a fuel source that isn’t expensive. The material, which is a hybrid of titanium oxide and magnesium oxide, uses the magnesium oxide to absorb the CO2 and the titanium oxide to act as the photo-catalyst, generating electrons through sunlight that interact with the absorbed CO2 and water to generate the fuel.

(more…)

Globally, carbon dioxide in the number one contributor to harmful greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions have been linked to the acceleration of climate change, leading to such devastating effects as rising sea levels that displace communities and radical local climates that hurt agriculture.

But what is you could turn that CO₂ into baking powder?

That’s what one company in India is setting out to do. A chemical plant in the city of Tuticorin is teaming up with India’s Carbon Clean Solutions to save 60,000 tons of last year’s CO₂ emissions.

“I am a businessman. I never thought about saving the planet,” says Ramachadran Gopalan, owner of the plant that is capturing CO₂ from coal-powered boilers, to BBC Radio 4. “I needed a reliable stream of CO₂, and this was the best way of getting it.”

While Gopalan may not have thought about saving planet, the team at Carbon Clean Solutions has.

(more…)