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| "if it wasn't for the invention of X we wouldn't have Y" |
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| jpanhalt:
--- Quote from: magic on August 22, 2022, 08:41:59 am ---I don't think you do, the point was simply that coal is far from being pure carbon, 10:8 C:H proportion per the source you found. --- End quote --- I was about to write an edit earlier but decided to get some sleep. My graduate work dealt mostly with hydrocarbons and one in particular, tetraphenylanthracene (C30H18), which has a H:C ratio of 0.6. That type of structure can theoretically be extended to tile a surface with even lower ratios. The ratio of 0.8 is certainly not a sharp dividing point between coal and common hydrocarbons. One example is naphthylene (C10H8), which is quite common and low melting. Acetylene (C2H2) is also common. I was focused on liquid fuels like gasoline and kerosine, which is my second citation. In any event, efficient liquefaction of coal has been a dream of petrochemists for ages. Google search shows some progress has been made, particularly in deriving petrochemicals from it.. My apologies. John |
| jpanhalt:
As for beginning with CO2 and making fuels, isn't that how biodiesel and ethanol are made? With the help of plants, of course. |
| pcprogrammer:
Plants are definitely capable of converting CO2 into something else, but you need a lot of them to reduce the amount of CO2 currently in the atmosphere, and the big problem with that is where to grow them. We got rid of so many of them just to make space for where we live :o |
| pcprogrammer:
--- Quote from: jpanhalt on August 22, 2022, 10:32:30 am ---In any event, efficient liquefaction of coal has been a dream of petrochemists for ages. --- End quote --- Just like turning lead into gold :) (Not an exact match to the point made above, but it shows the intent.) |
| Zero999:
--- Quote from: tszaboo on August 22, 2022, 09:06:38 am --- --- Quote from: Zero999 on August 22, 2022, 08:44:18 am --- --- Quote from: pcprogrammer on August 22, 2022, 08:24:07 am ---Just a thought, no idea if it is possible, but what if we extract CO2 from the atmosphere and recombine it with what ever is needed to make some sort of synthetic gasoline and keep running internal combustion engines on it and call it CO2 neutral. This instead of massively producing batteries for electric vehicles. Does not solve the excessive amount of CO2 there is now, but just switching to "renewable" energy does not solve this either. Only active extraction of CO2 and safely storing it could do it in a short time frame. Still leaves a lot of other problems with other forms of pollution, but something to think about. --- End quote --- Where do you get the energy from to extract the CO2 and convert it back to gasoline? I'm sure you're aware it will take much more energy to do that, then was produced from burning the gasoline. --- End quote --- From the sun and wind. There are already days when the power generation by renewables is more than needed, and the price of electricity goes negative. The more renewables, the more of these days will happen. BTW, carbon capture directly from air, would still be non-profitable for a long time, when you still can place it to the chimney of a coal fired plant. --- End quote --- Is that really true? Most countries heavily subsidize renewables. Wind turbines aren't perfect. There's the problem of disposing of them when they've reached the end of life. The blades are made of resin bonded fibreglass which can't be recycled. I suppose it's possible to thermally depolymersise the resin, to produce oil and char and the glass will melt and reused, most probably as a building material. The problem is this won't be cheap. I can see most of it going to landfill. The Sabatier reaction can be used to convert CO2 to methane, synthetic natural gas, but a source of hydrogen is needed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction |
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