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Fuel from Carbon dioxide
14/Sep/2006: Carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that is abundant in the atmosphere, is the main culprit in global warming, resulting in climate changes all around the world.
However, this greenhouse gas can be turned in to fuel, which could address the growing energy demands around the world, according a new study named ‘Specific Targeted Research Project’, funded by the European Commission’s Sixth Framework program (FP6).
This project was a joint venture between the Max Plank Institute in Germany, the Louis Pasteur University of France and the University of Paras in Greece. A team of researchers from the University of Messina in Italy coordinated this project, which received funding under the New and Emerging Science Technology Program of FP6. The project examined the means and ways to utilize the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and convert them in to useful fuel.
Carbon dioxide released in to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, is a very stable gas with strong chemical bonding between the oxygen and carbon atoms. By breaking this bond between the carbon and the oxygen atoms, long-chain carbon molecules that can be easily converted in to fuel can be obtained. In an interview to the journal ‘New Scientist’, the lead researcher of this project, Professor Gabriele Centi, said that conversion of CO2 in to fuel is no more a dream and further research is required to explore the possibilities to do so.
The energy required to break the double bonds between the oxygen and carbon atoms in CO2 is very high, but this team discovered a cutting-edge technology to break the CO2 molecule by using free electrons released by splitting water molecules, using sunlight and a titanium catalyst, to reduce CO2 molecules and bind the carbon atoms using platinum and palladium catalysts inside a carbon nano-tube. This process is highly efficient than other industrial processes used to reduce CO2 and produces molecules of eight or nine long hydrocarbon chains at 1% efficiency in room temperature.
The findings of this project can turn the clock back in time and help us to remove the harmful carbon dioxide gas from the atmosphere, turning it in to a useful fuel. If the process used to break the CO2 molecules in this study can incorporate ‘Green’ technologies like solar thermal energy towers, which can generate massive heat energy, then the efficiency of it can be improved further.
Kesavan Siva
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