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Gallium helps convert CO2 into Carbon and Oxygen
- Waterluvian 5y agoI’m not sure: is the Gallium a catalyst?
- Lev1a 5y agoAnd if so, could it be replaced by orgnano-catalysts which were in the news recently? I only had chemistry in school but maybe it's even as simple as using parts from the chemistry involved in photosynthesis?
- valw 5y agoFolks, just to clarify: "catalyst" is a very broad chemistry term for "something that helps a chemical reaction take place without being a reagent nor product of said reaction." So don't get the wrong idea: catalysts have quite specific uses, and you cannot substitute any one catalyst for any other.
- Waterluvian 5y agoYes. Thanks for that clarification. What I meant in my original question is if we consume huge amounts of gallium to do this. Ie. can it scale?
- adrian_b 5y agoIt depends a lot on which will be the lifetime of the catalyst at industrial scales. Gallium is one of the most expensive metals, not because it is very rare, but because it is very diluted. There are no minerals with a high concentration of gallium, enough to make their commercial exploitation worthwhile. There are no mines of gallium. Gallium is always extracted as a secondary product in mining operations where either aluminum or zinc is the main product. Because of that, the available quantity of gallium depends on the volume of the productions of aluminum and of zinc, and it follows their yearly oscillations.
- adrian_b 5y agoThe process described in the paper uses both gallium and silver as catalysts. The advantage of using gallium is that it is in liquid form. When the gallium is regenerated after catalyzing one cycle of the reaction, it mixes again with the liquid gallium. Being liquid ensures a long life for the catalyst. Solid catalysts are never recovered perfectly after taking part in the reaction and then being again deposited on their support, so they degrade much faster. The mechanism of solid catalyst degradation is similar to that which limits the life of a rechargeable battery with solid electrodes.
- javier_cardona 5y agoA preprint of the paper mentioned in the post is available here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347609399_Mechanical_energy-induced_CO2_conversion_using_liquid_metals https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347609399_Mechanica...
- GistNoesis 5y agoThe following link has the additional supplementary images missing from your link https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-112257/v1 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-112257/v1 I quickly skimmed it but the protocol on page 13 seems simple, the chemicals involved are relatively low risk (verify the MSDS). Mix some gallium metal with a powder of a Silver salt in a mortar and pestle, put it in a solvent, stir it with a magnetic stirrer, while bubbling CO2, in a N2 atmosphere, and carbon snowflakes should float to the top in a few hours. Maybe some chemist can help make it into a safe for all kid science-fair project.
- aychedee 5y agoSo, for $4.3 trillion dollars / year we can turn the 43 billion tonnes of CO2 we emit per year into oxygen and carbon crust. Which is twice the annual revenue for the global oil industry.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago"Which is twice the annual revenue for the global oil industry." That means that for every $1 the oil industry makes, it is creating $2 of debt for future generations. This is vandalism, pure and simple
- franky47 5y agoThat is assuming it takes less than a year to convert all that amount. At the given rate of .1 liter/minute, you'd need a lot of those installations or quite the scale-up.
- ericd 5y agoWell, don’t forget the cost to concentrate CO2 from 440 ppm in the atmosphere to 10^6 ppm. The current cost of direct air capture that I’ve seen is about $600-$1000/ton (via Climeworks). Capturing CO2 from flue gas at power plants should be a good bit cheaper, but I think it’s still significant.
- xwdv 5y agoAny financing options?
- pjc50 5y agoThat sounds about right, that it costs more to ameliorate the problem than can be earned by causing it.
- zz865 5y agoYeah we could turn CO2 into coal or we could just stop burning coal in the first place.
- maxerickson 5y agoThat would make it pretty feasible. A 25% reduction in consumption (if the activity were purely subtractive from the economy, which it probably wouldn't be) is manageable.
- jarenmf 5y ago> 92% efficiency in converting a tonne of CO2, using just 230kWh of energy. They estimate this equates to a cost of around $100 per tonne of CO2. Not sure if this is really competitive enough. Just read recently[1][2] that EEMPA based solution can capture at a cost of $47 [1] http://netl.doe.gov/projects/files/CostAndPerformanceBaselineForFossilEnergyPlantsVol1BitumCoalAndNGtoElectBBRRev4-1_092419.pdf http://netl.doe.gov/projects/files/CostAndPerformanceBaselin... [2] https://scitechdaily.com/cheaper-carbon-capture-is-on-the-way-marathon-research-effort-drives-down-cost/ https://scitechdaily.com/cheaper-carbon-capture-is-on-the-wa...
- WithinReason 5y agoAssuming 16 tons per person per year emissions [0], you can offset 1 person's carbon footprint for $1600 per year. [0]: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/carbon-costs-quantified https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/carbon-costs-quantifie...
- flexie 5y agoEvery American uses around 400 gallons of gasoline and 12,000 kwh electricity per year. So if you put a tax of $2 on each gallon of gasoline and 7 cent on every kwh electricity, you would finance that. And once it scales, it will be cheaper and cheaper, jut like most other products. With a 10 percent price reduction per year, it would be $620 per person in 10 years, roughly the same as an internet bill. In the rest of the world it's even cheaper. The average person in the world could be offset for $400 now.
- harg 5y agoBut if you get a load of solid carbon as a byproduct that could offset a lot of the energy cost, assuming the solid carbon is in a useful form.
- marcosdumay 5y agoHum... You are comparing a process that separates CO2 from a gas with a process that chemically breaks CO2. Those things do not compare.
- garyclarke27 5y agoBuy Silver
- s_Hogg 5y agoHow much of the cost is the energy? Would hooking it up to a wind turbine help?
- wcoenen 5y agoThe article says 230 kWh per ton of CO2, so you can just multiply that by a cost per kWh, e.g. 0.07 $/kWh for industry in the US. 230 * 0.07 = 16.1 dollars. So that suggests that most of the cost is not energy.
- steeve 5y agoThis is great. That said, to put things into perspective, the CO2 surplus we have to offset is 20 giga tonnes of CO2 every year.
- cletus 5y agoSo let's do some math. Let's consider natural gas. According to the US government [1], natural gas produced 1.358x10^12 kWh of power and 5.6x10^8 metric tons of CO2 so 1 metric ton of CO2 equates to ~2400 kWh of produced power. This post suggests the energy cost is ~230kWh/ton. This is an important sanity check because it means that (capital costs aside) and if it scales you could technically remain carbon neutral for a net output of energy. While this is of course only in a lab and they mention "battery" one should remain skeptical (since pretty much every battery "breakthrough" is nothing more than marketing for research funding). This may be in the paper but in this summary I didn't see anything about how the CO2 needs to be delivered. Does it need to be in a relatively pure form? What sort of preprocessing is required? As for the capital costs, it's hard to say anything concrete here other than if silver and Gallium are catalysts, they're both relatively cheap at that scale (Gallium seems to be <$250/kg according to some quick Googling). Catalysts tend to have a lifespan so those aren't one-time costs generally but still. It's also not clear how much of each material is required. Not to be a broken record on HN, but I've often said--and I'll repeat here--that I don't believe altruism will solve greenhouse gas emissions and global warming: it'll only be solved when it becomes economic to do so. Another way of putting that is when the cost of carbon capture and/or non-greenhouse gas emitting energy sources is profitable, that's when you'll see change. [1]: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11
- sabujp 5y agodoes the semiconductor industry not use large quantities of GaAs? Has the industry replaced its use with something else? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium_arsenide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium_arsenide
- rbanffy 5y ago> Another way of putting that is when the cost of carbon capture and/or non-greenhouse gas emitting energy sources is profitable, that's when you'll see change. We may be underpricing the collapse of our civilization due to climate change. It'll be extremely inconvenient and really bad for businesses all over.
- punnerud 5y ago
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- anoncow 5y agoWill this result in an increase in O2 levels? If yes, what risk does that bring?
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoO2 levels are currently decreasing. In a thousand years we will run out
- jjcon 5y agoTry >1 billion years from now
- IshKebab 5y agoNot an issue. The oxygen release is just oxygen that was already in the atmosphere before it was used to burn oil. Even if that weren't the case, the atmosphere is 21% oxygen and 0.04% CO2.
- nominatronic 5y agoGiant predatory dragonflies the size of seagulls, if the fossil record is anything to go by. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101029132924.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101029132924.h...
- mrfusion 5y agoI’m actually interested in using this for terraforming Venus. We’ve got plenty of energy from sunlight and very concentrated co2. To keep them at the right temperature We could build floating blimps with these machines on board.
- taf2 5y agoThis would be amazing. Venus having nearly the same gravity as earth gives it a big plus in terms of future colonies. The other issue I believe is it’s spin - meaning a normal day on Venus is something like 5k hours compared to earths 24… that means you cook for a lot longer on one side instead of a nice even toasting like we have here on earth… still I like your idea because gravity is probably one of the bigger factors of creating a future nice home…
- mrfusion 5y agoThe long days are a tough cookie for sure. I wonder if we could make a planet scale Hvac system to pump the heat to the cold side.
- lend000 5y agoI wish there was more data on the reaction mechanism. It's unclear which way the equilibrium would shift at the high temperatures present on Venus, or if the solvent is an important part of the reaction/would be in liquid form on Venus (most solvents would not). But I agree that would be an awesome application.
- mrfusion 5y agoThere are certain altitudes on Venus where the temperature is earth like.
- neom 5y agoI would be remiss not to post the amazing LockPickingLawyer videos using Gallium to pwn locks: https://www.youtube.com/c/lockpickinglawyer/search?query=Gallium https://www.youtube.com/c/lockpickinglawyer/search?query=Gal...
- mah4k4l 5y agoSo you can separate it to oxygen and carbon at a 92% efficiency for €30 max or something? If you could now burn the newly donned carbon again and maybe enhance the burning with the harvested oxygen then how much is that worth as energy produced monetarily? Maybe not the eternal mover but just saying this might just be how this will play out in real life in the end (once again).
- beders 5y agoIf we would charge the fossil fuel industry for the cost of destroying the environment, the millions of lives lost due to pollution, it would become infeasible to pump or mine more stuff out of the ground. We don't need technological solutions, we need political solutions. Now
- vixen99 5y agoNo, you and I kept up the demand on the fossil fuel industry without which it would not exist and all of us went along with it and now you want them to pay for your and my indulgence. How sweetly ironic! It's never our fault, is it?
- malermeister 5y agoThis is a classic case of victim blaming. You and I didn't "keep up demand" because we wanted to, we "kept up demand" because it was the only option available to heat our homes. It's not our fault the industry didn't provide us with alternatives.
- joe_the_user 5y agoWhether you blame the fossil fuel industry or not, they don't have the cure to their destruction in their back pocket or something. Even if you seized all the stocks and bonds of the fossil fuel industry, you wouldn't have the money required to solve this problem and you wouldn't have a plan to solve the problem. It's not our fault the industry didn't provide us with alternatives. It's not really the job of a given industry to provide alternatives. That job, in a modern democratic society, devolves to the state. The US state certainly failed there and was corrupted by private industry (auto and petroleum certainly). But the only way out is the state stepping up and moreover, the state stepping up with statist solutions - building things (public transit), requiring things (electric cars), prohibiting things (CO2 generating production processes) and requiring things (Non-CO2 generating things and possibly/eventually sequestering). Honestly, I'd see anyone thinking taxes or credits could be the solution as part of the problem.
- halaahmed 5y agoI get how you could use this to take solar energy and pull CO2 out of the air, but the article mentions using it in cars, which makes no sense. You’re going to use more energy than you get from burning gas to then capture the carbon?
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- mikewarot 5y agoHow can they capture 92% of the CO2 generated by burning coal for less energy created by burning it, creating steam, running the steam through a turbine which then runs a generator, through a switching yard, and out to the world? The Carnot limit is far less than half, and yet this can get most of the Carbon back, with a balance of almost half of the energy? I did the math on this in the thread about this last week, and it seems like over-unity, a big red flag. The need for the worlds supply of gallium and a lot of silver and other chemicals signals more red flags. HN Story 8 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28873458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28873458 My response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28874831 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28874831
- colechristensen 5y agoThe carbon output isn't pure carbon, but carbon oxides. Some of the oxygen is stripped from CO2 and the result is carbon-oxygen solids which are apparently industrially useful.
- ashtonkem 5y agoThe problem is that if you turn around and use those carbon materials in industry, then you really haven’t captured the carbon at all. All that would accomplish is playing an emissions shell game, allowing fossil fuel consumers to shift the emissions to someone else. For carbon capture to be useful from a climate perspective, we have to actually lock away the consumed carbon somewhere where it can’t enter the fast carbon cycle.
- colechristensen 5y agoDepends on what you do with the thing when you're done with it. Dumping it in a landfill after a decade would indeed by carbon capture.
- ohiovr 5y agoWould this method be able to grow single crystal grahite crystals if it were controlled tightly? A single of crystal graphite would have a lot of useful properties much like silicon. Because of its anisotropic strength it can be much stronger and more flexible than composites. Things like turbine blades could be carved from single crystal graphite.
- gonational 5y agoA noble discovery... However, even if this was an economically viable solution to the perceived problem of CO2 in the atmosphere, this doesn't help with the goal of setting up a global government and global tax, so it would be ignored. Anthropogenic global warming, as a studied issue, is not about solving the world's problems; it's about setting up a global government with a global tax. It always has been; it hasn't even pretended to be anything else. The motivations have always been ostensibly about solving global warming, but the plans have always been very public; set up a global tax and a global government to implement this tax. That could not be more clear. Ask yourself, if you were planning on taxing the entire planet, even if it was only .1% of their GDP (~80 billion), would you rather have that money or have some random scientist discover the solution to the problem that leads to you getting 80 billion dollars?
- anyfactor 5y agoA tangential thought. Since the last crash of oil prices there was a radical move toward rare earth material mining. Every minining and exploration company tried look into ways to mine and find better uses of rare earth minerals that would generate the same pre-crash oli and gas profits. But reviewing half a decades stock research or DD of these newly pivoted mining companies I find nothing to be radical and it is often the same repackaged environmental well being rhetoric from the industry. There is no pioneering business, leader or technology in rare earth mining. And I am often very skeptical of mining industry talking about positive environmental consequences of mining. Even though we are divided on Musk's contribution in revolution in EV industry but he didn't push an environmental agenda IMO but he pushed for providing better consumer utility while minimzing negative environmental consequences. If rare earth industry as a whole quite non-inuitivetly provide or promise of enhanced utility (in the economic sense) without mentioning positive environmental consequences as a headline then I will believe.
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- rswail 5y agoHaving a legitimately feasible way to do carbon capture is a Good Thing as we phase out coal fired generation. If it can be retrofitted to existing generators, then at least they stop generating CO2 into the atmosphere. There's been a lot of nonsensical "CCS" (Carbon Capture and Storage) where the "storage" is "somehow pump it back underground where it screws the water table". At least this mechanism captures the CO2 into a form where not only is it potentially useful, but is also easy to re-store in a stable way, potentially back to the same coal mines the original fossil fuel came from.