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Solar-Powered Electrochemical Cell Used To Produce Formic Acid From CO2
Zothecula writes Rising atmospheric CO2 levels can generally be tackled in three ways: developing alternative energy sources with lower emissions; carbon capture and storage (CCS); and capturing carbon and repurposing it. Researchers at Princeton University are claiming to have developed a technique that ticks two of these three boxes by using solar power to convert CO2 into formic acid. With power from a commercially available solar panel provided by utility company Public Service Electric and Gas (PSE&G), researchers in the laboratory of Princeton professor of chemistry Andrew Bocarsly, working with researchers at New Jersey-based start-up Liquid Light Inc., converted CO2 and water to formic acid (HCOOH) in an electrochemical cell.
Claimed efficiency is only 2%, using PV panels. It would make more sense to just use the PV panels to replace coal fired plants for generating electricity.
so theoretically, we can develop a process to turn harmful emissions (or any emissions) into the same stuff that goes into batteries, which we can use for power?
honestly mind blowing! if I'm reading this right this is cool
Thank you Dave Raggett
Why would you want to convert Carbon Dioxide into Carbon Monoxide?
If not used immediately, Formic acid decomposes into carbon monoxide and water when exposed to air and heat. I wouldn't exactly call this a "game changer" unless the target of it all is to give everyone A) a lot of toilet bowl cleaner for cheap or B) a silent death.
However, I believe that (electricity and/or heat)+H2O+CO2->some hydrocarbon is going to be the next big thing in the chemical industry. The company or individual that comes up with a practical, inexpensive solution will basically have a license to print money.
There is an amazing piece of technology that harnesses sunlight, converts water and CO2 into complex carbohydrates, useful proteins and even medicines. It self propagates and can be installed in a variety of environments. There is an existing harvesting infrastructure and it also produces an essential building material. It is known as trees.
Trees breathe CO2. Problem solved.
Ants celebrate
Indeed. For the foreseeable future you'll reduce CO2 more by using the panels to displace coal power and even Natural Gas. Only after you've shut ALL of them down and still need to reduce CO2 does this make sense.
Even in ~20 years we'd be better off doing something like use all the retiring EV batteries* to help stabilize the grid and shift solar power to the 7-9 pm peak.
*10 years for EVs to actually reach significant market penetration, 10 years more before people start replacing the batteries in them.
I don't read AC A human right
Formic acid can be stored and used in a fuel cell to have a very good solar storage fuel. No need to worry about CO if kept within this fuel cycle.
Related Abstract: http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content...
...disapproves of formic acid
You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
Solar-Powered Electrochemical Mom Used To Produce Formic Acid From CO2
catalyst for almost CO free process
this have achieved with Brookhaven National Laboratory
But I read this and went HUNH ?
Formic acid isn't used for much of anything except preservatives and antibacterials, and some niche tanning and cleaning uses. It allready has biological means of production (Hint this traps CO2 as well), and this diverts electricity (read energy) from uses where it's already well employed ?
The only renewable environmental thing here is the solar panel and some future research on maybe fuel cells.
I can't help but wonder how much formic acid would be generated to reduce the excess CO2 we create in any significant measure.
It just sounds like nuclear waste programs, capture and store .... sure, but sooner or later you still have to come to grips with the amount of waste whether in raw form or captured form. It just seems like doing something simply for a short term gain, to be seen as doing something. Yet the real problem seems to be the inefficiencies of the processes producing the CO2 in the first place.
It's like flooding in a ship, you don't try to stop the flooding, you seek to slow the flooding to a manageable rate. The CO2 will be produced, the best you can hope is to slow the rate at which you're producing it.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
There's no point at removing a small amount of CO2 if you continue to add 10 times the amount somewhere else.
Sure there is. It keeps you from adding 11 times the CO2. Granted you could accomplish more by getting rid of whatever is adding the CO2 but that doesn't make this a futile endeavor. Furthermore if we eventually are going to need CO2 scrubbing technology to survive then we may as well get busy developing it now. This strikes me as the sort of technology we don't want to start thinking about after climate change gets out of hand.
Maybe we should just breed more ants.
With power from a commercially available solar panel provided by utility company Public Service Electric and Gas (PSE&G)
Why the hell would you even mention that? The source of the electricity for an electrochemical proof-of-concept reaction matters not at all - Much less, the company that happened to sell you the solar panel. If the core reaction works, you can prove it just as thoroughly using grid power as you can using Product Placement-powered Greenwashing.
That said, running this reaction from the grid would more directly expose the real problem with it - at 2% efficient, it would produce far, far more CO2 than it sequesters; which in turn means you would never, ever want to actually do this using solar power, rather than just using the solar power directly instead of coal.
And in the interest of full disclosure, I would love to see massive adoption of solar, and consider the residential zero-net-energy movement a huge step in the right direction. But the planet will sequester CO2 all by itself; we just need to stop making more.
On the other hand, if you shut down the coal plant, and use the PV panels to generate the same amount of electricity, you've saved all 10 units.
Except we aren't going to shut down the coal plants any time soon and we do not presently have the ability to use PV panels to replace it. There is NO energy scenario for the next 40 years which does not involve substantial amounts of burning fossil fuels, including coal. Even if we reduce the amount of coal used and thus reduce CO2 emissions, why would we not reduce them further (even if only a little) by other means if those means are economically viable? Your point is valid theoretically but it's a bit of a strawman.
A co-worker has a law of problems, which states that problems, like matter, can neither be created nor destroyed. They can only be moved around. In this case we are exchanging a carbon problem for a formic acid problem.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Sure you can. Not only is it possible, it wouldn't take that much land. http://cleantechnica.com/2011/12/14/solar-energy-from-the-sahara-desert-could-power-the-world-but-will-it/
Sure we can - our current usage is rife with waste. We could easily cut US energy consumption by 50+% simply by wasting less energy, we'd only need to drop per-capita energy usage to levels comparable to such backwards wastelands as the UK and France - and even they've really only taken advantage of the low-hanging fruit so far.
Meanwhile even at current energy consumption levels US per-capita energy consumption is 308 million BTU per year, or 247 kWh per day. At 5kWh per square meter of solar panel per day (a conservative number achievable almost anywhere with low-to-mid-range solar panels) that's only 49.5 meters of panels per person, or 532 square feet. A little high, but not unachievable.
Meanwhile we've recently made some great breakthroughs in solar panel technology, for example discovering that panels made with relatively common and non-toxic magnesium salts can perform on par with our current best-of-breed panels based on gallium arsenide and other extremely rare and toxic elements. Let that hit mainstream and we can cut those panels to 266 sq.ft. Add in European-class efficiency and we'd only need 133 sq.ft. of solar panels per person. Eminently achievable - all we need is decent batteries for daily power buffering and we're set. And advances in virtually "immortal" ultra-high-power liquid metal batteries look quite promising, not to mention businesses like Aquion that are already scaling up production for grid-focused saltwater batteries. And if you happen to live in mountainous areas pumped water gravitational batteries are a moderately mature and inexpensive technology already, if not quite so efficient.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Photosynthesis has a comparatively low efficiency, which will come back to bite you if the space for your application is limited.
Also, only works in a fairly narrow temperature range (if it's 10 degrees below zero, fairly little photosynthetic activity will happen even you have plenty of sunlight). In addition it offers some nice byproducts, like grains, tomatoes, zucchini, etc.
The electricity-to-hydrocarbon route can use space that's unsuited for growing plants. Also, if you want to use plants to bind CO2, you won't be using grains, tomatoes or zucchini - because these plants aren't optimized for maximum CO2 conversion.
Nothing hurts worse than these synthetic bee stings.
Crazy ants use formic acid and are impervious to fire ants. Do they get it from CO2? How much CO2 does a crazy ant sequester? If you've never seen a crazy ant they don't bit or sting but they are FAST and they are MANY.
http://www.ibtimes.com/crazy-a...
-- Each tock of the Planck clock is a new world and here we are still life. --
Well from what I have read we could meet out existing energy needs by covering 1% of earth's surface with 1% efficient solar panels since the earth receives about 10,000 times the energy from the sun that humans consume daily. Now granted we probably couldn't extract all that energy, and we would need to have some surplus built in for times like cloudy days so something like 10x our current daily consumption should be plenty which is still doable since 5% efficient panels are the really cheap crap and that only would require covering 2% of earth's surface. Now jump up to 10% efficient panels and we are back at 1% coverage and these are common and the numbers only get better with something like the higher end but still fairly common 14% panels. Granted local storage would be needed to provide smoothing and having a large national grid with larger regional storage would also probably be needed (if you have huge local storage this becomes less important) but with more intermittent renewable entering the energy market things like this will be needed anyway.
This also doesn't even get into cutting down on wasted energy which we have a lot of in the US. I don't want to sacrifice my standard of living one bit and I wouldn't want anyone else to either but to say going green would require living a lifestyle comparable to that of a nomadic loner is just being stupid.
Time to offend someone
http://hardware.slashdot.org/s... "New Scientist reports that, faced with global warming and potential oil shortages, the US Navy is experimenting with making jet fuel from seawater by processing seawater into unsaturated short-chain hydrocarbons that with further refining could be made into kerosene-based jet fuel.
More here: http://blogs.discovermagazine....
Just plant a bunch of Stinging Nettles. They already convert CO2 into Formic Acid using solar energy. And they also make a tasty soup!
Oh yes!!
"Pulmonary and ocular toxicity result from longer exposure to elevated oxygen levels at normal pressure. Symptoms may include disorientation, breathing problems, and vision changes such as myopia. Prolonged exposure to above-normal oxygen partial pressures, or shorter exposures to very high partial pressures, can cause oxidative damage to cell membranes, the collapse of the alveoli in the lungs, retinal detachment, and seizures."
You are also wrong. CO2 levels were approximately equal to today. So what would 3 degrees C average temperature mean?
"In the Pliocene, three million years, temperatures were 3 degrees higher than our pre-industrial levels, so it gives us an insight into the three-degree world. The northern hemisphere was free of glaciers and icesheets, beech trees grew in the Transantarctic mountains, sea levels were 25 metres higher [Climate Dynamics, 26, 249-365], and atmospherc carbon dioxide levels were 360-400 ppm, very similar to today. There are also strong indications that during the Pliocene, permanent El Nino conditions prevailed. Hansen says that rapid warming today is already heating up the western Pacific Ocean, a basis for a coming period of 'super El Ninos' [Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 103, 39, 14288-93].
Between two and three degrees the Amazon rainforest, whose plants produce 10 per cent of the world's photosynthesis and have no evolved resistance to fire, may turn to savannah, as drought and mega-fires first destroy the rainforest, turning trees back into carbon dioxide as they burn or rot and decompose. ...
Three degrees would likely see increasing areas of the planet being rendered essentially uninhabitable by drought and heat. Rainfall in Mexico and central America is projected to fall 50 per central. Southern Africa would be exposed to perennial drought, a huge expanse centred on Botswana could see a remobilisation of old sand dunes [Nature, 435, 1218-21], much as is projected to happen earlier in the US west. The Rockies would be snowless and the Colorado river will fail half the time. Drought intensity in Australia could triple, according to the CSIRO, which also predicts days in NSW above 35 degrees will increase 2 to 7 times."
And more.... 3 degrees C is a lot. It may not "sound" like much viewed through the lens of daily temperature fluctuation but that's the entirely wrong way to understand what that means.
That's the panel's peak output - what it produces when it's oriented normal to incident sunlight on a cloudless day at noon. e.g. An average 16% efficient panel is rated at about 125 W/m^2 peak. Multiply that by 24 hours and you get 3 kWh/day for a square meter of panels. Unfortunately the sun doesn't stay directly overhead 24 hours/day.
To get average panel output, you need to multiply by PV solar's capacity factor. That takes into account night, movement of the sun, weather, etc. For the continental U.S., PV solar's capacity factor is about 0.145 (for northern Europe it's closer to 0.10). So averaged over a year, your 16% efficient panel is only going to generate 0.435 kWh/day.
Assuming your other energy figures are correct, this equates to 568 square meters of panels per person.
How about: C02 ->(some catalyst process like a tree) -> C + O2
Then get some ribs for the 4th, and heat the ribs up with the 'C'? PARTY!!!
Normally, formic acid is 800-1200 / tonne. I wonder if this would be a great deal cheaper?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Sure we can - our current usage is rife with waste. We could easily cut US energy consumption by 50+% simply by wasting less energy, we'd only need to drop per-capita energy usage to levels comparable to such backwards wastelands as the UK and France
That's not going to happen unless we get rid of electricity
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
lol I meant to say: that's not going to happen unless we get rid of air conditioning
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Storing CO2 does not help anyone, and only does harm. The problem is not that there is too much CO2 in the world, the problem is that we convert way too much carbon and oxygen into CO2. Period. If we store all the CO2, we deprive ourselves from oxygen, because we keep on converting it! The Biosphere II experiment has clearly demonstrated that (by using concrete, which, by itself, stores CO2). Storing CO2 is just one more environmental crime to cover up another.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Structural rigid Nanocarbon ultracaps and 24 vold DC households and changes in building codes. All the pieces need to come together.
if it is not obvious a problem with PV is storage and conversion from DC to alternating. The converters and the batteries are expensive and fail quickly. The new old batteries last but just get rid of them. Maybe add another layer to the ultracap building walls and you have integrated PV.
structural ultracaps have been demoed. Nano carbon ulracaps have been demonstrated. 24 volt houses are almost commodity items.
Now what are the numbers?
One huge problem with your calculations is that they work on averages. The world does not work like that. What do you do in winter time when the real output is 10% of the average output and the demand is double the average? To deal with that you would need twenty times your calculated area of PVs.
Also you numbers are way off. You state "5kWh per square meter of solar panel per day". According to this " most efficient mass-produced solar modules have power density values of up to 175 W/m2". So 5000/175 = 28.5 hours. The sun does not shine 28.5 hours a day. On the shortest day of the year in Seattle one square meter of panel would only produce 1.5 kWh. Even on the longest day it would only produce 2.8kWh.
Am I the only one that thought of the Keshe Foundation and their claim of solar panels that capture CO2 and CH4?
Did this startup simply "borrow" the knowledge from the widely-distributed USB stick and claim it as their own?
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
Whoops, my bad - I was thinking insolation where I live in the Southwest: clear skies and lowish latitude translate to roughly 5 hours of peak solar equivalency per day, and the solar thermal systems which interest me as a tinkerer can easily approach 100% efficiency (1kW/m^2 at peak). At 16% efficiency that's still about 0.8kWh/day, but not nearly as impressive as 5kWh. On the other hand as you get into more overcast areas further from the equator the appeal of solar thermal increases, and high capacity thermal batteries (aka insulated water tanks) are cheap. Even in northern Montana a DIY thermal installation can pay for itself in a few years, and unless it's replacing wood or geothermal heating that's a big win.
But even PV isn't as bleak as you make out: let's use your number: 0.435kWh/m2/day w/current solar panels. Double that for the high efficiency panels to 0.87kWh. Then halve per-capita energy consumption to get in line with European efficiency:123.5kWh/day. That's still only 142 square meters per person. Three times my flawed estimate, but still not terrible. That's ~44,600km^2, or an area about 30% larger than Maryland, to supply the entire US with all its energy needs. Even with current energy consumption and cheap silicon PV we'd only need an area the size of Missouri to do the job.
And remember: the vast majority of that energy is consumed by businesses rather than individuals, and they are already beginning to roll out solar in a big way, because the $/Watt has already fallen to the point that it's notably cheaper than today's grid electricity over a 20-year amortization period, and businesses are accustomed to dealing with everything in terms of amortized costs. Let the price of fossil fuels keep climbing and the price of PV continue to fall, and it won't be long before PV is cheaper than burning coal on-site in many areas.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Yeah, fixed the number error in a rely to Solandri - I was thinking insolation in the Southwest, which is indeed ~5kWh, but that's only directly relevant to solar-thermal uses.
I think you badly overestimate the summer-versus-winter variation, though I'll grant you that areas prone to long winter storms might indeed be that bad. But regardless - yes: the biggest problem with solar and wind is variability - the answer is some combination of storage and/or a high-efficiency long range distribution grid. Both of which are technologies under active development. After all, Arizona's insolation doesn't vary all that much over the year, and you'd only need to cover 60% of it with solar panels to provide the entire nation's energy needs. Double our PV and energy usage efficiencies and you'd only need to cover 14% of it, then you just need a superconducting grid backbone and a few days worth of batteries to power the nation.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Take a look at this real world data from Germany. Take a look at page 10. In July they produced 5.1TWh. In January they produced .35TWh. So in January they produced 7% of what they produced in July. Also notice they overall they produced 29.7TWh with and installed capacity of 35.65Gw. Here is the math 35.65*365*24=312TWh of capacity. 29.7/312= 9.5%. So the actual production was 9.5% of capacity. So using real world data your figures are at least off by an order of magnitude.
A the answer is some combination of storage and/or a high-efficiency long range distribution grid. Both of which are technologies under active development.
You are absolutely correct. The problem is that the storage problem has not been cracked yet. Pumped hydro needs a lot of water to be pumped and can only be done in certain mountainous wet areas. If the area is too dry the surface water just evaporates. It also had major environmental impact as it floods areas and uses lots of water. Compressed air reservoirs have been found to leak and be inefficient. Batteries are too expensive (even metal salt) to store Terra Watt Hours of energy. While there is some research into electricity storage there is not enough and that is a problem. Long range transmission can be done with high voltage DC but even that has losses. It is also very expensive as it has to be converted to AC for general use. At every conversion there is a loss. DC does not step up or down very well.
Arizona's insolation doesn't vary all that much over the year, and you'd only need to cover 60% of it with solar panels to provide the entire nation's energy needs.
Sorry but you forget conversion/transmission losses. Also, 14% is not a small number. Much of Arizona is unsuitable for the installation of solar panels. Hills pointing the wrong direction, mountains, cities, farms, etc. Arizona is not a blank slate.
Have you run any number on how much it would cost to install a nation wide HVDC network and install all those PV installations? The US population is about 314million. Even using your figures of 142 sqM/person that comes out to 44,600sqkm. Lets look at the cost of just the panels. Here is a basic panel with an area of 1.6 SqM at $417. Lets play with the cost a bit. lets quarter the cost for bulk by and double for high efficiency. Therefore half the cost. Here is the math 44.600sqkm/1.6sqM*417/2= $5.8Trillion. And that is just for the panels and not a lot of other costs involved with installation. Here is a simpler calculation. Take a real world installation. It produced 626.22 GWh in a year and cost of $1.8 billion. You propose to generate 28,308,670GWh. To produce that would require about 626 such plants costing about $1.1 Trillion. Then there is the cost of transmitting that power. Where will that money come from?
Another point you might want to look at is the efficiency of that plant in Arizona. It has an installed capacity of 290 MW and produced 626.22Gwh. 290*24*365= 2540.4GWh. That works out to a 25% efficiency even in Arizona on an optimal site.
Sun + magnifying glass + ant = formic acid smell.