UD catalyst can convert CO2 to CO with 92 percent efficiency
A team of researchers at the University of Delaware has developed a highly selective catalyst capable of electrochemically converting carbon dioxide — a greenhouse gas — to carbon monoxide with 92 percent efficiency. The carbon monoxide then can be used to develop useful chemicals.
The researchers recently reported their findings in Nature Communications.
“Converting carbon dioxide to useful chemicals in a selective and efficient way remains a major challenge in renewable and sustainable energy research,” according to Feng Jiao, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and the project’s lead researcher.
Co-authors on the paper include Qi Lu, a postdoctoral fellow, and Jonathan Rosen, a graduate student, working with Jiao.
The researchers found that when they used a nano-porous silver electrocatalyst, it was 3,000 times more active than polycrystalline silver, a catalyst commonly used in converting carbon dioxide to useful chemicals.
Silver is considered a promising material for a carbon dioxide reduction catalyst because of it offers high selectivity — approximately 81 percent — and because it costs much less than other precious metal catalysts. Additionally, because it is inorganic, silver remains more stable under harsh catalytic environments.
The exceptionally high activity, Jiao said, is likely due to the UD-developed electrocatalyst’s extremely large and highly curved internal surface, which is approximately 150 times larger and 20 times intrinsically more active than polycrystalline silver.
Jiao explained that the active sites on the curved internal surface required a much smaller than expected voltage to overcome the activation energy barrier needed drive the reaction.
The resulting carbon monoxide, he continued, can be used as an industry feedstock for producing synthetic fuels, while reducing industrial carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 40 percent.
To validate whether their findings were unique, the researchers compared the UD-developed nano-porous silver catalyst with other potential carbon dioxide electrocatalysts including polycrystalline silver and other silver nanostructures such as nanoparticles and nanowires.
Testing under identical conditions confirmed the non-porous silver catalyst’s significant advantages over other silver catalysts in water environments.
Reducing greenhouse carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use is considered critical for human society. Over the last 20 years, electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction has attracted attention because of the ability to use electricity from renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and wave.
Ideally, Jiao said, one would like to convert carbon dioxide produced in power plants, refineries and petrochemical plants to fuels or other chemicals through renewable energy use.
A 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report stated that 19 percent of greenhouse gas emissions resulted from industry in 2004, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website.
“Selective conversion of carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide is a promising route for clean energy but it is a technically difficult process to accomplish,” said Jiao. “We’re hopeful that the catalyst we’ve developed can pave the way toward future advances in this area.”
The research team’s work is supported through funding from the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund and University of Delaware Research Foundation. Jiao has patented the novel application technique in collaboration with UD’s Office of Economic Innovation and Partnerships.
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Their next project is to turn gold into lead.
Nah.
Gold from silver leads in the futures trading because of carbon.
But really,
Lead bearing on papers pouring into journals turning into promotions, touring, silver awards and gold coins. (As opposed to lead pouring into journal bearings around shafts turning silver commuting carbon unto copper … And if you understand any or every part of THAT particular pun you can only be a power plant engineer …) 8<)
However CO is much more reactive than Co2 For example we could turn CO and powdered Iron into Fe(CO)5 to sequester it. This would have the pleasant side effect of making both my Aurora and BHP shares go up!
Well… I use a charcoal grill in the summer. Plenty of CO coming off that baby. That is why they tell you to never use charcoal to heat your house: CO has a nasty habit of killing you. My boss did that in his car in his garage 30 years ago. And we buy CO detectors [for] our houses in case the furnace exhaust gas has a leak while heating the house with forced air.
Me, I think we have enough problems with CO, and not enough issues with CO2. And with CO2 being .04% of the atmosphere, and hoping global warming IS actually happening, so that maybe one day I can visit my Mom in Chicago when it is not 14 below zero. I think global warming is a good thing up to a few degrees or so. We will adapt, just like those of us who moved to the Southwest to avoid winters like my Mom had in Chicago (just like when I grew up in 1967 when it was also 14 below and I got to get our of school for a couple days). We adapted in Vegas with air conditoners during the warm months, otherwise it is the best climate I have lived in…even better than San Diego and the months of ocean gloom and clouds people forget about much of the year: clammy.
So bag the CO, we have enough of it. CO2 still gets my vote.
Keith, “It’s a catalyst, apparently, with a small input voltage needed to pull off the trick. In other words, the normal energy calculations of combustion and conversion don’t apply.”
That’s not how catalysts work. They only make a chemical reaction faster. They don’t change the reaction free energy (deltaG).
Turning CO2 into CO will always be an energy loser. Doing it electrolytically, with any kind of catalyst, is not a good way of storing off-peak energy. It’s not a good way of producing a feedstock gas. The CO won’t be useful for anything, including any chemical synthesis that might require CO. CO can be made other ways and much more cheaply – by the water-gas reaction, for example, that someone has already mentioned.
It’s an excellent piece of chemistry. It’s interesting, and the work could well point to better ways of making catalysts. The chemists deserve our congratulations.
But as a way toward “sustainability” (whatever that is), or carbon sequestration, or energy storage, or anything else economically useful, it’s a non-starter.
I suspect Heir Doctor Professor Feng Jiao missed the lecture on the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
richardscourtney says:
January 31, 2014 at 11:57 am
“It would be much better to obtain CO from coal using a water gas shift.”
Shift reactors go in the other direction. CO + H2O -> CO2 + H2. They are commonly used in reformers for cracking NG to produce H2.
Uh, no.
The laws of thermodynamics still apply. CO2 to CO still requires more energy than CO to CO2 provides. A catalyst cannot change that.
No, it’s just a silly statement. If you want CO from hydrocarbons, then make it from hydrocarbons directly. Turning the hydrocarbons into CO2 first just wastes energy.
On the other hand, if you happen to have a bunch of extra energy just laying around, such that you can afford to waste it reforming CO from the CO2 that you made by burning hydrocarbons for energy, then why not just use that energy laying around directly instead of burning the hydrocarbons in the first place?
A team of researchers at the University of Delaware has developed a highly selective catalyst capable of electrochemically converting carbon dioxide — a greenhouse gas — to lethal carbon monoxide with 92 percent efficiency. The carbon monoxide then can be used to exterminate humanity and kill off all plants.
The green cult will love this one.
I talked to the trees in my front yard about this. They, as well as the flowers, shrubs and grass in the area, are quite against this sort of exploitation of their food supply and have asked me to file a class action lawsuit against these fiends for plotting the mass murder of plant life. Or something like that. It is so cold outside that it is difficult to understand the trees, shrubs are never clever, the flowers don’t talk so much as blink their bulbs at this time of year and grasses tends to babble about everything at once. But they are again’ it and will sue.
Nobody “commonly” uses such catalysts to chemically synthesize anything useful from carbon dioxide. Nor are they about to. If you want to make carbon monoxide, then you can do it cheaply by the incomplete combustion of carbon, methane, or a gazillion other petroleum products.
Reducing carbon dioxide, which is what they are doing, is like selling dollar-bills for 50 cents. Leave it to the trees.
The current economic utility of such catalysts is close to zero, and will remain zero for the foreseeable future, and probably far beyond.
“The resulting carbon monoxide, he continued, can be used as an industry feedstock for producing synthetic fuels, while reducing industrial carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 40 percent.”
Using the CO to make other useful chemicals, sure, but using it to make fuels is stupid. It will take more energy to make the fuel than they will get back when they burn it. It’s impossible to end up ahead. Simple thermodynamics.
Seems to me this might be exciting news for those planning Mar’s missions – relying on Martian manufactured fuel, for the return trip. GK
Sorry. We already have the best living through CO2 conversion chemistry. The chemical process is called photosynthesis. The process converts CO2 into delicious food for human consumption and oxygen for humans to breathe. It doesn’t get any better than that.
This is ridiculous. Don’t you see the real agenda? Creating a process that can be patented and licensed for profit. If you really want to remediate CO2 , plant trees, cut them down when mature and make them into pellets to fire home furnaces and electric plants. Repeat. Oops sorry there’s no carbon credit patent royalties in that model.
rgbatduke says:
January 31, 2014 at 11:34 am
_______________________________________________________________________
Some of us organic chemists stayed awake in PChem.
All the catalyst does is decrease the activation energy and doesn’t affect the overall “deltaH”. If you look at cooling the stack gas, dewatering it and putting it through some separation process (membranes or zeolite absorption) with very likely compression to something north of 250 psig, the overall energy balance looks even worse.
The next great idea for carbon sequestration?
Think of it this way. What if it does work? And if the cost is not so much.
I don’t think we need it, I think we’d be just fine without it.
But what if it does work? Then things could go back to the way they never were. I’m so tired of this fight. I want it to stop. I want us to stop tearing each other apart.
Let me know when they perfect the ideal application for this type technology. You know, when they harness the limitless absolutely-free energy from photovoltaic solar panels, and crack the CO2 all the way down to O2, ready to be bottled for numerous purposes, and the carbon is electro-deposited onto microscopic seed crystals until it forms a usable compact product suitable for safe long-term carbon storage, such as two caret diamonds. In time they could stockpile perhaps millions of tons of them.
Because the way the better-than-thou eco-elites are killing off anything resembling a fossil fuel to save the world from global warming as the natural global cooling phase takes over, it might be worth a chuckle in the dismal times ahead to toss another shovelful of diamonds on the fire to stay warm.
It’s just that I have been in this fight for so long. I’m so tired.
evanmjones,
Relax, we can tag-team. ☺
evanmjones said January 31, 2014 at 9:06 pm:
Mother Nature has come to your defense as the natural cool phase has taken hold. As “The Pause” grows longer and tilts negative, their rhetoric shall be hard-pressed to find willing ears.
Take some time off, relax, recharge. Just don’t forget to come back to the battle when the warm phase returns and they start up again, in about, oh, twenty years.
To the various know-nothings that think producing CO is a bad idea because it is poisonous: There are many industrial gases that are produced in large quantities and that are highly toxic. One common one is hydrogen sulfide, which happens to have an odor we are all familiar with. CO is also already produced industrially. People used to cook and heat their homes with coal gas which contained a high percentage of CO.
Riiiight? Conversion of CO2 which is necessary to life to CO which is inimical to it? That sounds like a great idea! Aren’t there better ways of producing industrial CO?
We are well aware of the other industrial poisons cited by TRG above. Just because burning coal produces CO doesn’t make that CO safe. We use a CO detector at home as we have a solid fuel stove.
Kforestcat \at 4:21 pm
says it very well.
This (?) 2 CO2 –> 2 CO + O2 reaction makes little sense from a process point of view.
Take C (coal) to CO in the first step of combustion is nearly a wash if not endothermic.
It is the conversion of CO to CO2 that is the primary exothermic reaction to generate useful energy.
So where are you going to get a concentrated CO2 stream to run this highly endothermic catalytic reaction? From a powerplant that uses almost all the power to reverse the process?
The energy budget of this process needs further explaining.
About the only thing this catalytic process is good for is generating government grants.
Neither of these compounds play well with their neighbors. Build such plants any place you want but no closer than a 2 hour drive away from my back yard. Just one of the many problems:
http://metallurgyfordummies.com/hydrogen-embrittlement/
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And note, TRG just above, says “People used to . . .” Good riddance.