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The principal culprit causing global climate change is carbon dioxide (CO2), the combustion product of burning carbon-containing fuels. Burning fossil fuels releases carbon that has been locked in the ground (as coal or petroleum or natural gas) for hundreds of millions of years, which in turn pushes the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to concentrations not senior the past 200 million years. Thus, the human species is conducting an uncontrolled experiment on the Earth’s climate, and the best we can do is make educated guesses regarding what the outcomes may be. However, none of those outcomes are good.
There re two possible strategies for combatting global climate change. The first is to reduce or eliminate the use of fossil fuels as a source of energy and replace these with renewable sources. The second is to remove the excess CO2 from the atmosphere. While some envision the ultimate fate of the CO2 removed from the atmosphere in the second strategy as simple sequestration, which comes with a raft of disadvantages too numerous to list here. A much better is to envision the captured CO2 as a chemical starting material to make useful substances that will have little or no likelihood of polluting the environment.
Along these lines, a group of scientists associated with Brookhaven National Laboratory and Columbia University have devised a way to convert CO2 into carbon nanofibers, which are materials with useful properties and diverse potential practical long-term uses. One example of a use for carbon nanofibers suggested by the linked report is as a component of concrete to strengthen it. The carbon will be locked away for decades, or possible much longer.
The process the scientists developed is one with two steps. The first step converts carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide (CO); CO is much more amenable to chemical reaction than CO2. The second step then causes the the CO to convert to carbon nanofiber at moderate temperatures in the presence of a catalyst.
The first step is something I’ve written about before, but the scientists in the current study used a different catalyst from the one described in my old TC diary. The process used is electrocatalytic. The catalyst consists of palladium on a carbon support. The reaction, which converts carbon dioxide and water (H2O) into carbon monoxide and elemental hydrogen gas (H2), is driven by an electrical current. (The hydrogen byproduct could conceivably be collected and used as pollution-free fuel.)
The second step takes the product CO from the first step and heats it to 400 oC in th presence of an iron-cobalt catalyst, with some extra pure rhodium added. (There is a reaction that converts CO2 into carbon nanofibers directly, but it requires temperatures on the order of 1000 oC.)
We all hope the this process, or others like it, can be used to convert sequestered CO2 into some form of carbon that is stable, useful, and not in a form that will accelerate climate change.
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From Denise Oliver Velez:
This comment from pelagicray in Greg Dworkin’s Friday APR responding in a conversation about southerners dealing with snow, and driving in it.
From Lex Lurker:
From centsmaker's diary Principal Who Saved Lives in Iowa School Shooting Has Died, dearcoll's comment on school shootings vs $COTUS nails it superbly.
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