Scientists turn CO2 back into coal

[Auto-Didact]

Climate rewind: Scientists turn carbon dioxide back into coal

Researchers have used liquid metals to turn carbon dioxide back into solid coal, in a world-first breakthrough that could transform our approach to carbon capture and storage.

The research team led by RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have developed a new technique that can efficiently convert CO2 from a gas into solid particles of carbon.

Published in the journal Nature Communications, the research offers an alternative pathway for safely and permanently removing the greenhouse gas from our atmosphere.

The article says that this process takes place using a liquid metal catalyst at room temperature and is both efficient and scalable. The rest of the article can be read over at phys.org (link in title).

The published paper (open access) is here:
Esrafilzadeh et al. 2019, Room temperature CO2 reduction to solid carbon species on liquid metals featuring atomically thin ceria interfaces

Negative carbon emission technologies are critical for ensuring a future stable climate. However, the gaseous state of CO2 does render the indefinite storage of this greenhouse gas challenging. Herein, we created a liquid metal electrocatalyst that contains metallic elemental cerium nanoparticles, which facilitates the electrochemical reduction of CO2 to layered solid carbonaceous species, at a low onset potential of −310 mV vs CO2/C. We exploited the formation of a cerium oxide catalyst at the liquid metal/electrolyte interface, which together with cerium nanoparticles, promoted the room temperature reduction of CO2. Due to the inhibition of van der Waals adhesion at the liquid interface, the electrode was remarkably resistant to deactivation via coking caused by solid carbonaceous species. The as-produced solid carbonaceous materials could be utilised for the fabrication of high-performance capacitor electrodes. Overall, this liquid metal enabled electrocatalytic process at room temperature may result in a viable negative emission technology.

 

[.Scott]

An efficient way of turning sunlight and CO2 into coal might provide an easy way of transporting fuel to polar regions.

 

[russ_watters]

Media. Hype.

An "efficient" method to reverse combustion just requires exactly as much energy be put back into it as you got out of it. Which does absolutely nothing for us as long as there is a single coal power plant in existence.

 

[Rive]

I have no problem with stuffing all the coal back down the mines - except I don't know where the energy will come from.

 

[256bits]

So what else is produced besides the C(s) ?
some oxygen, water, carbon monoxide.
I couldn't find the gaseous off products.
Might this find its way to Mars to collect CO2 for an energy dense fuel.

 

[nuuskur]

Will it run on hopes and dreams?

 

[Auto-Didact]

The skepticism here just reflects the fact that this technique as is will not solve the problem of global warming alone. The energy requirements to reduce atmospheric CO2 in this manner are obviously enormous, but no one promised a direct solution. The key things that these researchers demonstrated is proof of principle, efficiency and scalability.

I see no good reason why a centuries long approach, utilizing both natural and artificial power sources - including those that we have yet to invent - could not lead to a wide-scale carbon recapture technology. It is usually better to let such a technology come from private industry instead of only from government funded research.

This means there needs to be an associated economic incentive - e.g. that such a technique leads to efficient production of precious fuels or compounds such as carbon nanotubes - which is both in high demand and easily scalable; consequently, such a scenario might, as a side effect, eventually lead to a significant reduction or even full resolution of the problem of global warming.

 

[sysprog]

Media. Hype.

An "efficient" method to reverse combustion just requires exactly as much energy be put back into it as you got out of it. Which does absolutely nothing for us as long as there is a single coal power plant in existence.

We need to establish selective enforcement for that pesky second law.