prasad1
Active member
The microwave. Safety glass. Sweet’N Low. These are just a few of the accidental inventions that have changed the world, in small ways and big. Now, a new discovery may join them.
Researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a Department of Energy lab in Tennessee, have discovered a mechanism for converting carbon dioxide into ethanol. Their method takes advantage of nanotechnology, creating a catalyst that produces ethanol from a solution of carbon dioxide in water.
“We discovered somewhat by accident that this material worked,” said Adam Rondinone, the lead author of a new study in the journal ChemistrySelect. “We were trying to study the first step of a proposed reaction when we realized that the catalyst was doing the entire reaction on its own.”
Researchers have attempted to convert carbon dioxide into useful substances before, primarily using metal-based catalysts like copper, platinum,silver, and gold. But competing reactions have meant that very little of any one product is generated.
By using nanotechnology, Rondinone and his colleagues could limit the side reactions and get more ethanol. They embedded copper nanoparticles in carbon spikes, providing a large surface on which for the reaction to occur. And the catalyst works without rare and expensive materials: only tiny amounts of copper were needed.
Another benefit to this technology: it can operate at room temperature and in water. All of this means that it could prove economically viable on a larger scale.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/20...entally-turn-carbon-dioxide-into-ethanol-fuel
Researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a Department of Energy lab in Tennessee, have discovered a mechanism for converting carbon dioxide into ethanol. Their method takes advantage of nanotechnology, creating a catalyst that produces ethanol from a solution of carbon dioxide in water.
“We discovered somewhat by accident that this material worked,” said Adam Rondinone, the lead author of a new study in the journal ChemistrySelect. “We were trying to study the first step of a proposed reaction when we realized that the catalyst was doing the entire reaction on its own.”
Researchers have attempted to convert carbon dioxide into useful substances before, primarily using metal-based catalysts like copper, platinum,silver, and gold. But competing reactions have meant that very little of any one product is generated.
By using nanotechnology, Rondinone and his colleagues could limit the side reactions and get more ethanol. They embedded copper nanoparticles in carbon spikes, providing a large surface on which for the reaction to occur. And the catalyst works without rare and expensive materials: only tiny amounts of copper were needed.
Another benefit to this technology: it can operate at room temperature and in water. All of this means that it could prove economically viable on a larger scale.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/20...entally-turn-carbon-dioxide-into-ethanol-fuel