“Reversing” Combustion: We Can Now Convert Carbon Dioxide Back Into Ethanol

[Bill USA]

The researchers report a 63 percent yield for this process


http://futurism.com/reversing-combustion-we-can-now-convert-carbon-dioxide-back-into-ethanol/

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a catalyst that “essentially reverses” the combustion of ethanol, directly converting carbon dioxide into ethanol, discussed in a publication in ChemistrySelect.

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“We’re taking carbon dioxide, a waste product of combustion, and we’re pushing that combustion reaction backwards with very high selectivity to a useful fuel,” Rondinone said. Ethanol is the same type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages but is also widely used as an additive to motor fuel. It’s commonly sourced from plant material.

The researchers are also enthusiastic about the industrial replicability of the setup, as the technique uses low-cost materials and can be performed in room temperature.

The development is shifting paradigms in fuel use, introducing a way of having “renewable” greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide takes up 65 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, belched out primarily by fossil fuel and industrial processes. Carbon capture is the most commonly used technology to regulate emissions by keeping it from reaching the atmosphere by turning carbon dioxide and particulate combustion residue into solid waste—a waste-to-waste process. Catalytic conversion of waste carbon dioxide presents a waste-to-fuel alternative that is truly valuable to us today.
(more)

here's an article that goes into a bit more detail: Reversing the combustion process to convert CO2 into ethanol


.. even if/When(?) we entirely green technologies for cars, heating homes and powering industrial processes we still have to remove a helluva lot of CO2 from our atmosphere. If this process works and is efficient enough to be practical it would be extremely valuable as a method of taking Carbon out of the atmosphere.

[VMA131Marine]

1. This only makes sense if the energy comes from renewable sources.

It takes more energy to convert CO2 back into ethanol than you get from burning the ethanol in the first place. Moreover, we make ethanol from corn with less energy input than we get back out (there's some dispute about this). I guess the other GHG free source of energy for this process could be nuclear.

[Bill USA]

3. see quote from the second article referenced in OP

The researchers believe that their technique's use of inexpensive substances and ability to produce ethanol could easily be up-scaled to commercial levels, and even in alternative energy-storage systems where excess electricity generated by wind and solar could readily be turned into liquid fuel.

[fiorello]

5. That's a LOT of solar panels...

The amount of excess CO2 in the atmosphere is the combined result of all human industrial activity, worldwide, since the 1800s. Reversing it, alas, requires the same amount of energy that was generated by all that coal, oil, and natural gas when it was burned and used. It will be a long-haul…

Energy, even solar and wind, is not free. The cost of building, installing, and maintaining solar and wind installations is now reaching the point where it is comparable cost to oil and coal.

I think that this process, if successful, could help move us towards a zero-carbon economy. It would lead excess energy generated by solar and wind be used to create ethanol, which then can be used as a fuel (in car engines, for example). Using it does release the CO2... but at least the complete system is carbon-neutral.

Cleaning up the residue of 100 year spree might be a bit more difficult.

[Bill USA]

7. yes, it's a big task.

[Fahrenthold451]

2. I've got solar panels on the roof and drive electric. That's today, not pie in the sky 10 years away

The truth of the matter is that we can't wait for the tech to get there and do nothing. The good news is that it is possible right now to make a big impact. It also has some unanticipated benefits.

I don't pump gas anymore. Pumping gas is one of those day to day experiences that you don't fully realize is dirty and disgusting until you stop doing it for a while. Kind of like getting corrective eye surgery and realizing that you no longer have to poke yourself in the eyeballs to insert contact lenses four times a day.

But seriously, you can get a used Leaf for $10K and call Solar City to get a $0 down rooftop lease. Yeah yeah, it's not perfect, but it exists right stinking now.

I do get the need to extract carbon and I still get all excited when I read futurism articles. That being said, we've got the technological means to make clean living happen right now, just gotta do it.

[reflection]

4. I want to be excited about this

but doesn't the combustion of ethanol just re-release the CO2 back into the atmosphere? Or am I missing something? The article makes a big deal out of the waste-to-fuel process, as opposed to the waste-to-waste CO2 capturing process. It would seem that the whole process is kind of circular unless the fuel is not used as such.

I'm sure someone smarter than me (read: everyone) will be along shortly to set me straight. TIA

[Bill USA]

9. your observation is correct. But if the ethanol from atmospheric CO2 is used to replace fossil fuels

in cars and trucks, you are achieving a reduction in CO2 being added to the atmosphere.

[reflection]

10. Makes sense. Thanks.

I knew there was something glaringly obvious I was missing. The old brain takes a day off now and then.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

6. Every step helps. I'd like to see tax incentives for planting trees.

So much vegetation including trees, is destroyed for construction--Sprawl. It enrages me.

More trees are a necessity; there needs to be motivations to get people involved.

[Bill USA]

8. I am with you on that. We should have some tax incentives for planting trees. And we should be

pushing making appliances, homes, business, industrial buildings more efficient. Increasing efficiency offers the biggest "bang for the buck" in terms of reduction of CO2 emissions. --- Not enough interest in that.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

11. I thought a lot of appliances are energy saver now?

Anyway, I'd like to see less plastic junk.


But the point I always come back to, aside from trees (and wild habitat), is FEWER PEOPLE.

Our endless fertility is the fatal flaw.

[Bill USA]

12. it's interesting that World population growth has slowed since 1962 when it peaked at 2.1%

https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth/

the annual world population growth rate peaked in 1962, at around 2.1%, and has come down to almost half since

it shows the current rate of growth of the World's population is 1.2%. Seems to me if average life span is 76 yrs a rate of growth in population of 1.3% would produce zero population growth (1/76 = 0.013). But that is not what the chart at link shows. FWIW: if you use average lifespan of 70 yrs the rate for zero population growth should be 1.4%.