Scrappy Australian Engineers Apparently Have Invented A Free Energy Reaction

[JoeN]

https://phys.org/news/2020-06-neat-carbon-dioxide-material.html

"The researchers, who carried out their work in the Particles and Catalysis Research Laboratory led by Scientia Professor Rose Amal, show that by making zinc oxide at very high temperatures using a technique called flame spray pyrolysis (FSP), they can create nanoparticles which act as the catalyst for turning carbon dioxide into 'syngas' - a mix of hydrogen and carbon monoxide used in the manufacture of industrial products. The researchers say this method is cheaper and more scalable to the requirements of heavy industry than what is available today."

So if you have CO2, you can get CO out of it somehow, which everyone knows can be burned in air to create CO2 and liberate energy, you can get CO out of it somehow again, which everyone knows can be burned in oxygen to create CO2 (once again!) and liberate energy... forever!  I guess Australia solved our energy problems!  Just recycle the CO2->CO+O->CO2 and PROFIT!

"We used an open flame, which burns at 2000 degrees, to create nanoparticles of zinc oxide that can then be used to convert CO2, using electricity, into syngas," says Dr. Lovell.

Because everyone knows that a 2000 degree flame doesn't itself consume a boatload of energy and emit CO2. 

Anyone buy any of this bullshit?  Someone tell me that this is going to work somehow IRL because as far as I can see it just violates basic laws of physics.

[Wolfram]

Electrochemical CO2 reduction is a well documented and understood process, and it doesn't violate any laws of thermodynamics. This paper simply proposes a new production method for a catalyst for this process, nothing controversial here. I don't have time to check the original paper in detail, so I can't speak for the quality of the research, but at least the basic premise makes sense. The energy balance in the production of the catalyst is hard to say anything about just from the flame temperature alone.

[donotdespisethesnake]

Can you not read??

can then be used to convert CO2, using electricity, into syngas

 

[jogri]

The chemical industry is performing such reactions for a couple of decades now... A lot of reactions create (pure) CO2, and rather than dumping the CO2 and paying for extra CO for other reactions they convert their CO2 to CO.
Btw, you don't even need a catalyst, if you heat a mixture of CO2 and carbon to ~800°C the Boudouard reaction kicks in and converts nearly all CO2 to CO.

The only thing i can't agree with from this paper is this statement:

"Waste CO2 from say, a power plant or cement factory, can be passed through this electrolyser, and inside we have our flame-sprayed zinc oxide material in the form of an electrode. When we pass the waste CO2 in, it is processed using electricity and is released from an outlet as syngas in a mix of CO and hydrogen,"

What should a power plant or cement factory do with syngas? Burn it? Doesn't work, you'll loose energy doing that. Sell it to the chemical industry? They demand rather pure syngas as an educt for plastic synthesis, you will get a lot of other crap in the exhaust of such facilities and you'd have to clean your gas.

[cliffyk]

in addition to "using electricity", Also from the linked article: "We used an open flame, which burns at 2000 degrees...", what fuels this 2000° flame and what is emitted while it flames?