Catalytic Combo Converts CO2 to Solid Carbon Nanofibers
https://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=121635Tandem electrocatalytic-thermocatalytic conversion could help offset emissions of potent greenhouse gas by locking carbon away in a useful material
January 11, 2024
UPTON, NY—Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Columbia University have developed a way to convert carbon dioxide (CO₂ ), a potent greenhouse gas, into carbon nanofibers, materials with a wide range of unique properties and many potential long-term uses. Their strategy uses tandem electrochemical and thermochemical reactions run at relatively low temperatures and ambient pressure. As the scientists describe in the journal Nature Catalysis, this approach could successfully lock carbon away in a useful solid form to offset or even achieve negative carbon emissions.
“You can put the carbon nanofibers into cement to strengthen the cement,” said Jingguang Chen, a professor of chemical engineering at Columbia with a joint appointment at Brookhaven Lab who led the research. “That would lock the carbon away in concrete for at least 50 years, potentially longer. By then, the world should be shifted to primarily renewable energy sources that don’t emit carbon.”
As a bonus, the process also produces hydrogen gas (H₂ ), a promising alternative fuel that, when used, creates zero emissions.
Capturing or converting carbon
The idea of capturing CO₂ or converting it to other materials to combat climate change is not new. But simply storing CO₂ gas can lead to leaks. And many CO₂ conversions produce carbon-based chemicals or fuels that are used right away, which releases CO₂ right back into the atmosphere.
…
So, to reverse things on a grand scale, say, convert 120ppm of CO₂ to carbon nanofibers would require, let’s call it 3 times the amount of useful energy that we produced by burning it in the first place. On the other hand, pumping CO₂ into basalt does not have to pay back that chemical energy debt.
= new reply since forum marked as read
For the last million years or so, atmospheric CO₂ has not risen above about 300ppm. When it has, it has been associated with about 5°C of warming. (We would prefer to limit it to no more than 1.5°C.)
Atmospheric CO₂ levels are at about 420ppm and rising over 2ppm each year.
There are various schemes about how we can decrease the rate of emissions, but I haven’t seen any plans to decrease the accumulation which I consider practical.
To give you an idea of the magnitude of the challenge, before we got involved, burning fossil fuels, cutting down forests and burning the wood, digging up peat and burning it (you get the idea) a pristine ecosystem was able to draw down CO₂ about 1ppm in about 1,000 years.
We’d probably do well to decrease CO₂ levels like… 150ppm? (In 2008, James Hansen et. al suggested using 350ppm as an initial target.) So, I hear your concern about nanoplastics, but…
https://democraticunderground.com/1127170495
At our current rate of emissions we will hit 450ppm in a little less than 15 years. That does not mean that all of the glaciers will disappear overnight. It means that without some way of lowering atmospheric CO₂ levels extremely rapidly… it’s not going to be pretty.
