Author Topic: Ethanol FROM CO2 - New cataylst process  (Read 7736 times)

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Offline VulcanBB18Topic starter

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Ethanol FROM CO2 - New cataylst process
« on: October 18, 2016, 10:42:01 pm »
This looks quite promising!

I like serendipitous discoveries like this one.  I hope it scales up!

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161012183520.htm

cheers,

« Last Edit: October 19, 2016, 04:39:35 am by VulcanBB18 »
 

Offline rdl

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Re: Ethanol to C02 - New cataylst process
« Reply #1 on: October 18, 2016, 11:15:55 pm »
Shouldn't the thread title read "Ethanol from CO2"?
 

Offline VulcanBB18Topic starter

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Re: Ethanol FROM C02 - New cataylst process
« Reply #2 on: October 19, 2016, 12:25:34 am »
Whoops! That's what happens when I post pre-coffee wake-up  :P

thanks guys  :)
 

Offline Macbeth

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Re: Ethanol FROM C02 - New cataylst process
« Reply #3 on: October 19, 2016, 12:37:08 am »
CO2 has always been a happy byproduct of ethanol production, at least back in the day I used to homebrew. To turn that fizz into ethanol? It's the holy grail...  :D
 

Offline raptor1956

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Re: Ethanol FROM C02 - New cataylst process
« Reply #4 on: October 19, 2016, 02:15:52 am »
If this can be scaled up it could mean big things for coal.  As just about the worst producer of CO2 coal is the boggy man and if that levels can be dramatically reduced or near eliminated then I don't know that its other vises would preclude it vis-a-vis other carbon fuels.  It would make a lot of people in West Virginia very happy...

But, since all the fuels we have come from the Sun or solar processes solar energy is ultimately the most efficient energy around.  Even at 15%, the starting point these days, solar voltaic is more efficient than any of the fossil fuels that require the Sun to produce the precursors (plants, plants->animals) that eventually (tens of millions of years) and with generally low efficiency become coal, oil, etc.  None of those fossil fuels are anywhere near 1% efficient in converting solar energy into usable energy.


Brian
 

Offline VulcanBB18Topic starter

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Re: Ethanol FROM C02 - New cataylst process
« Reply #5 on: October 19, 2016, 03:32:11 am »
Yes, all fossil fuels are effectively "stored sunlight" however one of the problems with electric vehicles in particular is energy storage - even the best batteries still don't approach liquid hydrocarbons in terms of energy density.  In terms of coal, I don't know if this technology is viable as a "CO2 scrubber" for things like coal power stations (which we have plenty of in Oz).

If this process allows us to make convenient liquid fuels from a waste product (CO2) and some renewable energy input (eg. Solar/thermal/etc), then we can start to displace the heavily reliance on fossil fuels, the liquid ones particularly.

Save that oil for making exotic plastics, not burning in our engines  >:D

cheers,
« Last Edit: October 19, 2016, 04:41:53 am by VulcanBB18 »
 

Online edavid

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Re: Ethanol FROM C02 - New cataylst process
« Reply #6 on: October 19, 2016, 04:16:27 am »
Whoops! That's what happens when I post pre-coffee wake-up  :P

Now make it CO2 instead of C02.
 

Offline Holmes34

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Re: Ethanol FROM C02 - New cataylst process
« Reply #7 on: October 20, 2016, 08:18:22 am »
Yes, all fossil fuels are effectively "stored sunlight" however one of the problems with electric vehicles in particular is energy storage - even the best batteries still don't approach liquid hydrocarbons in terms of energy density.

People always quote this energy density thing, but this is a pretty moot point as I'd venture to say above 70% of automotive road journeys probably fall into the range limitations of modern EV's. Additionally taking only the energy density of the fuel and not the equipment to extract and convert that fuel into usable energy (a moving car) is probably a more accurate assessment of a fuel's usefulness for transportation, otherwise we'd be pushing for nuclear engines!

Charging time and vehicle price are probably the only current things holding back EV's in terms of widespread use (At least the only practical real issues, public perception is a whole other kettle of sharks). Your second point about using these hydrocarbons for plastics is pretty much hitting the nail on the head. The current state-of-the-art in bioplastics is honestly decades behind EV's in terms of competitiveness.
 

Offline tszaboo

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Re: Ethanol FROM CO2 - New cataylst process
« Reply #8 on: October 20, 2016, 08:30:38 am »
Sounds like "green" BS. As it's a complete opposite of burning an ethanol, at least the same amount of energy would need to be spent to reverse the process => there is no point doing it. Well unless you have unlimited amounts of "green" energy and want to store the CO2 underground forever in the form of ethanol.
AFAIK they need electrical current to reverse the process. So we can make a Rupe Goldberg machince, converting CO2 to Vodka and backwards, but it does not solve the fundamental issue.
On the other hand, if they make a solar panel, attach a etanol machine to it, and make sure, that thirsty university students dont raid it, it can be just the thing we need to avoid global climate collapse.
 

Online wraper

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Re: Ethanol FROM CO2 - New cataylst process
« Reply #9 on: October 20, 2016, 08:35:16 am »
Sounds like "green" BS. As it's a complete opposite of burning an ethanol, at least the same amount of energy would need to be spent to reverse the process => there is no point doing it. Well unless you have unlimited amounts of "green" energy for conversion and want to store the CO2 underground forever in the form of ethanol. Or in your stomach, LOL.

NANDBlog was fast to reply before I deleted the post shortly after the posting to edit it a bit.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2016, 08:37:57 am by wraper »
 

Offline raptor1956

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Re: Ethanol FROM C02 - New cataylst process
« Reply #10 on: October 20, 2016, 08:39:02 am »
Yes, all fossil fuels are effectively "stored sunlight" however one of the problems with electric vehicles in particular is energy storage - even the best batteries still don't approach liquid hydrocarbons in terms of energy density.

People always quote this energy density thing, but this is a pretty moot point as I'd venture to say above 70% of automotive road journeys probably fall into the range limitations of modern EV's. Additionally taking only the energy density of the fuel and not the equipment to extract and convert that fuel into usable energy (a moving car) is probably a more accurate assessment of a fuel's usefulness for transportation, otherwise we'd be pushing for nuclear engines!

Charging time and vehicle price are probably the only current things holding back EV's in terms of widespread use (At least the only practical real issues, public perception is a whole other kettle of sharks). Your second point about using these hydrocarbons for plastics is pretty much hitting the nail on the head. The current state-of-the-art in bioplastics is honestly decades behind EV's in terms of competitiveness.


Energy density matters for planes in particular and although the vast majority of days driving require no more than a typical EV car's battery range there are days when you need 3X what the highest range Tesla can provide.  You can't average these things anymore than a conventional car can average HP requirements and conclude a car needs no more than 20hp.

My point was that ALL the energy we use comes either from the Sun or solar processes (heavy elements) and that the fossil fuels and all other non-solar energy sources are hugely inefficient compared to even the cheap 15% solar cells we have today.  Oil, for example, comes from organic material than gained it's energy from the Sun directly or indirectly by eating things that did.  The efficiency with which the organic materials sequester energy is much less than 1% and then you have to wait many millions of years to get oil.  With solar, you get 15% or more instantly -- no waiting.

The big drawback to solar is storage and while batteries are a way to handle that it will be a while before the lifespan of battery packs are practical.  But, since about 2/3 of energy use is during daytime even if there was no storage solar could provide 2/3 of our energy needs not counting planes.

I expect that 50 years from now, if we haven't killed ourselves off by then, we will be producing about 50% of our total energy needs with solar panels on our roof with another 35% coming from large utility scale solar projects.  Some of the energy produced from the large solar projects will be used to make clean fuel for things like planes.  I would bet that by then the cheap solar cells will be at least 25% and probably more like 35% efficient.  A home with 100m^2 of 25% solar cells could produce on an average day about 75-100kWHrs or energy  and that would fuly power the average home and leave perhaps 25kWHrs for a couple cars.


Brian
« Last Edit: October 20, 2016, 08:40:55 am by raptor1956 »
 

Offline Halcyon

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Re: Ethanol FROM C02 - New cataylst process
« Reply #11 on: October 20, 2016, 08:50:58 am »
Whoops! That's what happens when I post pre-coffee wake-up  :P

0942H is pre-coffee wake-up time? ;-) I think I've had my first coffee at 0445H most days.
 

Online coppice

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Re: Ethanol FROM CO2 - New cataylst process
« Reply #12 on: October 20, 2016, 11:58:31 am »
If this is efficient and scalable it could be huge. Energy storage is the big problem with the large scale use of wind and solar. If we can take all the surplus energy from those sources in peak generation periods, and efficiently store it as alcohol from atmospheric CO2,  our existing fossil fuel systems can continue to be used indefinitely, with no net carbon release to the atmosphere.
 

Offline Kilrah

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Re: Ethanol FROM CO2 - New cataylst process
« Reply #13 on: October 20, 2016, 12:24:40 pm »
People always quote this energy density thing, but this is a pretty moot point as I'd venture to say above 70% of automotive road journeys probably fall into the range limitations of modern EV's.
Doesn't change a thing, even if you CAN do most of your travels with an EV people don't buy one if they can't do that occasional long trip with it which requires them to either own a 2nd vehicle or to rent one for way too many $$. Thresholds vary, but I'd say if you know it won't make it >10% of the time most wouldn't do the jump.

Sounds like "green" BS. As it's a complete opposite of burning an ethanol, at least the same amount of energy would need to be spent to reverse the process => there is no point doing it.
Of course there is, to be able to use solar-based energy in things that can't incorporate solar sources or sufficient energy storage. Or that can, but where it would be so much more practical to keep an existing system.

E.g a passenger plane won't run on solar-charged batteries in a LONG time, but it could run on solar-generated liquid fuel.
Just like being able to run a car on liquid "green" fuel would allow reducing fossil fuel dependency MUCH quicker than replacing the entire car with an only mildly apopropriate solution completely different solution i.e. electric+batteries.
 

Offline mac.6

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Re: Ethanol FROM CO2 - New cataylst process
« Reply #14 on: October 20, 2016, 12:37:40 pm »
Sounds like "green" BS. As it's a complete opposite of burning an ethanol, at least the same amount of energy would need to be spent to reverse the process => there is no point doing it. Well unless you have unlimited amounts of "green" energy for conversion and want to store the CO2 underground forever in the form of ethanol. Or in your stomach, LOL.

NANDBlog was fast to reply before I deleted the post shortly after the posting to edit it a bit.

You can wrap this discovery in green BS sure, but it's a very interesting discovery: 63% yield to convert CO² to ethanol is quite high given it's a fresh discovery.
Now if this can be reverted, it can gives you direct electricity from ethanol at highest yield without any precious metals...
 
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Online coppice

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Re: Ethanol FROM CO2 - New cataylst process
« Reply #15 on: October 20, 2016, 12:43:17 pm »
63% yield to convert CO² to ethanol is quite high given it's a fresh discovery.
I'm not sure what they mean by that 63%. It seems like they mean they get 63% of the potential ethanol, but they might mean its 63% energy efficient. Whichever they mean, its not bad for a first pass.
 

Online helius

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Re: Ethanol FROM CO2 - New cataylst process
« Reply #16 on: October 20, 2016, 01:01:45 pm »
In chemistry yield usually refers to the percentage of a chosen starting material that was converted to the target compound. So 63% yield means that 63% of starting CO2 was converted to ethanol. Energy use is not accounted for in chemistry papers.
The yield is a way to quantify how selective the reaction is, since more side-products lower the yield. Some of the product is lost during purification, which also lowers it.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2016, 01:04:05 pm by helius »
 

Offline rs20

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Re: Ethanol FROM CO2 - New cataylst process
« Reply #17 on: October 20, 2016, 01:17:03 pm »
Sunlight ---Solar panel----> Electricity
Electricity + CO2 ----This discovery-----> Ethanol

or

Sunlight + CO2 -----Corn plant-----> Ethanol

I mean, I know it's more complicated than that. But I do wonder about the entire-lifecycle-analysis side of this.

Obviously a discovery worth pursuing, no doubt.
 

Offline Kilrah

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Re: Ethanol FROM CO2 - New cataylst process
« Reply #18 on: October 20, 2016, 01:19:58 pm »
You can put solar panels in otherwise unusable locations, but corn needs space that could/should be used for something else...
 

Online helius

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Re: Ethanol FROM CO2 - New cataylst process
« Reply #19 on: October 20, 2016, 01:24:43 pm »
The trick is that you need a CO2 supply. So there are not very many places that would be suitable.
 

Online coppice

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Re: Ethanol FROM CO2 - New cataylst process
« Reply #20 on: October 20, 2016, 01:29:41 pm »
The trick is that you need a CO2 supply. So there are not very many places that would be suitable.
That depends on the concentration of CO2 that they need. The ideal thing would be that they have something that works like photosynthesis, extracting the small CO2 content of the atmosphere.
 

Online helius

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Re: Ethanol FROM CO2 - New cataylst process
« Reply #21 on: October 20, 2016, 01:38:46 pm »
A catalytic reaction that converts 2CO2 + 3H2O = C2H6O + 3O2
can only produce 200 ppm ethanol from the 400 ppm CO2 in  the atmosphere. Distilling such a dilute fuel would be prohibitively inefficient.
 

Online coppice

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Re: Ethanol FROM CO2 - New cataylst process
« Reply #22 on: October 20, 2016, 01:48:03 pm »
A catalytic reaction that converts 2CO2 + 3H2O = C2H6O + 3O2
can only produce 200 ppm ethanol from the 400 ppm CO2 in  the atmosphere. Distilling such a dilute fuel would be prohibitively inefficient.
Why would the fuel be dilute? Is some other reaction producing a liquid result going on in parallel?
 

Online helius

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Re: Ethanol FROM CO2 - New cataylst process
« Reply #23 on: October 20, 2016, 02:04:46 pm »
Yes, it is possible that ethanol is also a reactant and you would get heavier products if the CO2 runs out.
I don't know the mechanism of this reaction but the description in the web article suggests there are many possible products.
 

Offline Cerebus

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Re: Ethanol FROM CO2 - New cataylst process
« Reply #24 on: October 20, 2016, 04:06:30 pm »
The trick is that you need a CO2 supply. So there are not very many places that would be suitable.

Breweries, bakeries, the list could be quite long; but if I had somewhere that produced beer, bread and fuel for my car I'd have a goodly proportion of the things that I think are essential in life.  :)
Anybody got a syringe I can use to squeeze the magic smoke back into this?
 


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