Scientists Accidentally Convert CO2 into Ethanol

[woof]

Ethanol is much easier to use, store, and transport than Hydrogen.
Ethanol is much easier to "sequester" than Carbon Dioxide.

Even if it doesn't scale commercially, every frat house will soon have a solar panel for umm, "climate reasons", yeah that's it.

 

[3Victoria]

Frat houses contain many storage units that need to be re-"charged" often ... infinite EtOH sink.

 

[woof]

Finally note that the process used in the paper used CO2 dissolved in water, not in air.

The Hydrogen had to come from somewhere. CO2 and H2O converted into C2H6OH

 

[ggr]

The Hydrogen had to come from somewhere. CO2 and H2O converted into C2H6OH

Indeed. And even worse, you get the ethanol dissolved in the excess water, so another step to distill it out is required.

 

[Ulmo]

There are lots of toxic chemicals out of combustion of oil and coal and derivatives other than CO2. CO2's probably by far one of the most benign outputs of the various bad outputs of combustion to people who have to breath it.

 

[ggr]

The Hydrogen had to come from somewhere. CO2 and H2O converted into C2H6OH

C2H5OH. The hydroxyl group replaces one of the hydrogens.

 

[woof]

C2H5OH. The hydroxyl group replaces one of the hydrogens.

Gah. Long time since I took organic chem!

 

[Discoducky]

I'd really like to know how much energy is being used and what the corresponding chemical reaction equations (with all contributors), but that has been left out of the full description High-Selectivity Electrochemical Conversion of CO2 to Ethanol using a Copper Nanoparticle/N-Doped Graphene Electrode - Song - 2016 - ChemistrySelect - Wiley Online Library

But, would assume that is essentially the cost of the waste electricity is sufficient to overcome a scaled version and the cost to obtain said chemicals and contributors are less than the overall value of the product, in a useful state, then yeah, this could be really cool.

 

[SageBrush]

cost to obtain said chemicals

There is no consumption of chemicals. The researchers found a speedy and presumably stable catalyst at room temperature.

As for the the chemistry, it is "simply"
CO2 + H20 -> Ethanol
Intermediates of course form and are consumed at equal rates

As for the energetics, it is a non starter for things like cars since running the electricity through a battery can be upwards of 80% efficient. Packaging the electricity as Etoh and then running it through a fuel cell (or LOL, a heat engine) is obviously much worse.

 

[Discoducky]

The Graphene nanoparticles don't come cheap and definitely have waste byproducts as just one example of their process that isn't outlined in enough detail to know what goes into and out of that process.

 

[S'toon]

Wasted Talent - a webcomic by Angela Melick