Scientists have developed the first low-cost system for splitting carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen — a process that's crucial if we're going to ramp up renewable energy use in the future.
[...]
The solution devised by a team from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland is based on an electrolysis technique using copper-oxide nanowires modified with tin oxide, which splits CO2 with an efficiency of 13.4 percent running on solar power.
[...]
That's why scientists have been working so hard to find a solution. Once carbon monoxide is released, it can be combined with hydrogen to produce synthetic carbon-based fuels, which means CO2 gets taken out of the atmosphere, and we get clean fuel at the other end - a win-win.
Current methods for doing this are prohibitively expensive, and need more energy to break down the carbon dioxide than they put out in return, which is why this new method is potentially so exciting.
[...]
Splitting carbon dioxide using low-cost catalyst materials
NewsMedia.com; actu.epfl.ch — 05.06.17 -
EPFL scientists have built the first Earth-abundant and low-cost catalytic system for splitting CO2 into CO and oxygen, an important step towards achieving the conversion of renewable energy into hydrocarbon fuels.
A promising avenue for the future of clean energy is to store it in the form of carbon-based fuels produced from renewable sources, effectively enabling the clean use of liquid fuels such as gasoline. A first step is the electrolysis of carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbon monoxide, which can be subsequently be transformed into liquid fuels. But current CO-forming catalysts are either not selective enough or too expensive to be industrially viable. EPFL scientists have now developed an Earth-abundant catalyst based on copper-oxide nanowires modified with tin oxide. A solar-driven system set up using this catalyst was able to split CO2 with an efficiency of 13.4%. The work is published in Nature Energy, and is expected to help worldwide efforts to synthetically produce carbon-based fuels from CO2 and water.
[…]
The system was able to selectively convert CO2 to CO with an efficiency of 13.4% using solar energy. The catalyst also reached a Faradaic efficiency of up to 90%, which describes how efficiently electrical charge is transferred to the desired product in an electrocatalysis system like the one developed here. “The work sets a new benchmark for solar-driven CO2 reduction,” says Luo.
[...]
Maybe the world doesn’t have to bake (and drown) afterall — it just has to get its act together
— and Build the Future. One that reverses our Industrial Age Carbon Trend-lines.
— — —
And on the same topic, another CO2 splitting break-through but using different nano-tech (Carbon Fibers) — from seeker.com
Can This Carbon Nanomaterial Solve Global Warming?
Apparently, we still live in “amazing times”.
If we only had “amazing leaders” …
— — —
Here’s one more discovery, for good measure ….