• HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
Saturday, January 16, 2021
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News

How clean electricity can upgrade the value of captured carbon

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
December 8, 2020
in Science News
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

A new paper in Nature Energy outlines an electrochemical method for converting captured carbon into useful products, from fuels to plastics.

IMAGE

Credit: Photo: Marit Mitchell

A team of researchers from University of Toronto Engineering has created a new process for converting carbon dioxide (CO2) captured from smokestacks into commercially valuable products, such as fuels and plastics.

“Capturing carbon from flue gas is technically feasible, but energetically costly,” says Professor Ted Sargent, who serves as U of T’s Vice-President, Research and Innovation. “This high energy cost is not yet overcome by compelling market value embodied in the chemical product. Our method offers a path to upgraded products while significantly lowering the overall energy cost of combined capture and upgrade, making the process more economically attractive.”

One technique for capturing carbon from smokestacks — the only one that has been used at commercial-scale demonstration plants — is to use a liquid solution containing substances called amines. When flue gas is bubbled through these solutions, the CO2 within it combines with the amine molecules to make chemical species known as adducts.

Typically, the next step is to heat the adducts to temperatures above 150 C in order to release the CO2 gas and regenerate the amines. The released CO2 gas is then compressed so it can be stored. These two steps, heating and compression, account for up to 90% of the energy cost of carbon capture.

Geonhui Lee, a PhD candidate in Sargent’s lab, pursued a different path. Instead of heating the amine solution to regenerate CO2 gas, she is using electrochemistry to convert the carbon captured within it directly into more valuable products.

“What I learned in my research is that if you inject electrons into the adducts in solution, you can convert the captured carbon into carbon monoxide,” says Lee. “This product has many potential uses, and you also eliminate the cost of heating and compression.”

Compressed CO2 recovered from smokestacks has limited applications: it is usually injected underground for storage or to enhance oil recovery.

By contrast, carbon monoxide (CO) is one of the key feedstocks for the well-established Fischer-Tropsch process. This industrial technique is widely used to make fuels and commodity chemicals, including the precursors to many common plastics.

Lee developed a device known as an electrolyzer to carry out the electrochemical reaction. While she is not the first to design such a device for the recovery of carbon captured via amines, she says that previous systems had drawbacks in terms of both their products and overall efficiency.

“Previous electrolytic systems generated pure CO2, carbonate, or other carbon-based compounds which don’t have the same industrial potential as CO,” she says. “Another challenge is that they had low throughput, meaning that the rate of reaction was low.”

In the electrolyzer, the carbon-containing adduct has to diffuse to the surface of a metal electrode, where the reaction can take place. Lee’s experiments showed that, in her early studies, the chemical properties of the solution were hindering this diffusion, which in turn inhibited her target reaction.

Lee was able to overcome the problem by adding a common chemical, potassium chloride (KCl), to the solution. Though it doesn’t participate in the reaction, the presence of KCl greatly speeds up the rate of diffusion.

The result is that the current density — the rate at which electrons can be pumped into the electrolyzer and turned into CO — can be 10 times higher in Lee’s design than in previous systems. The system is described in a new paper published today in Nature Energy.

Lee’s system also demonstrated high faradaic efficiency, a term that refers to the proportion of injected electrons that end up in the desired product. At a current density of 50 milliamperes per square centimetre (mA/cm2), the faradaic efficiency was measured at 72%.

While both the current density and efficiency set new records for this type of system, there is still some distance to go before it can be applied on a commercial scale.

###

Media Contact
Fahad Martin Pinto
[email protected]

Original Source

https://news.engineering.utoronto.ca/how-clean-electricity-can-upgrade-the-value-of-captured-carbon/

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-00735-z

Tags: Biomedical/Environmental/Chemical EngineeringClimate ChangeElectrical Engineering/ElectronicsEnergy/Fuel (non-petroleum)Pollution/RemediationTechnology/Engineering/Computer Science
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

IMAGE

Better diet and glucose uptake in the brain lead to longer life in fruit flies

January 16, 2021
IMAGE

Rapid blood test identifies COVID-19 patients at high risk of severe disease

January 15, 2021

Conductive nature in crystal structures revealed at magnification of 10 million times

January 15, 2021

Howard University professor to receive first Joseph A. Johnson Award

January 15, 2021
Next Post
IMAGE

Satellite tracking finds turtle foraging areas in Australia’s north-west

IMAGE

How the brain remembers right place, right time

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

POPULAR NEWS

  • IMAGE

    The map of nuclear deformation takes the form of a mountain landscape

    53 shares
    Share 21 Tweet 13
  • Blood pressure drug may be key to increasing lifespan, new study shows

    44 shares
    Share 18 Tweet 11
  • New drug form may help treat osteoporosis, calcium-related disorders

    38 shares
    Share 15 Tweet 10
  • New findings help explain how COVID-19 overpowers the immune system

    35 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Tags

Climate ChangeChemistry/Physics/Materials SciencesBiologyInfectious/Emerging DiseasesTechnology/Engineering/Computer ScienceMedicine/HealthEcology/EnvironmentMaterialsGeneticscancerPublic HealthCell Biology

Recent Posts

  • Better diet and glucose uptake in the brain lead to longer life in fruit flies
  • Rapid blood test identifies COVID-19 patients at high risk of severe disease
  • Conductive nature in crystal structures revealed at magnification of 10 million times
  • Howard University professor to receive first Joseph A. Johnson Award
  • Contact Us

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In