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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.
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.
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.
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.
The two dreams are:
- A 3D printer that takes its ink from the atmospheric carbon.
- A solar panel that produces lipids, sugars and proteins.
So... a tree.
We've already got CO2 scrubbing technology that is remarkably effective: photosynthesis in plants. In terms of cost/benefit, this method is by far more efficient than the one talked about in TFA. Plus there are numerous advantageous byproducts, like grains, tomatoes, zucchini, etc.
What we could use is a more effective means of sequestering the carbon in vegetation materials. Charcoal is great for sequestration: chemically inert for thousands of years, and with microscopic structures that promote good soil ecologies, much like coral promotes sea life. Currently most methods of producing charcoal return about 2 parts of carbon to the atmosphere for every part that is potentially sequestered ("potentially" since it needs to be put in soil or water and not in the barbeque).
"Biochar" is the word to google on for more about this form of carbon sequestation.
Will
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.
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.