3 ms·

The alloy is completely reusable as per TFA, I'm not sure why gigatons are needed...

by raverbashing 5y ago

scotty79 5y ago
How fo you turn gallium oxide back into gallium? Hiw do you separate it from carbon or from indium?
- Iwan-Zotow 5y ago
  > How do you turn gallium oxide back into gallium? electricity? Cathode and Anode?
- DennisP 5y ago
  From wikipedia, "Ga2O3 is an intermediate in the purification of gallium." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium(III)_oxide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium(III)_oxide So we'd turn the gallium oxide back into gallium the same way we did in the first place, when we made the gallium. I'm guessing we can also come up with chemical reactions for the other two. However, you're right that gallium production is quite low. It's a byproduct of zinc production from bauxite, and we get only a few hundred tons per year. Wikipedia doesn't say what the potential might be if we gallium were the main product. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium#Production_and_availability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium#Production_and_availab...
  - Suchos 5y ago
    You would still need to spend a lot of energy for the process, which brings us to the beginning. This could maybe be used when we have fully renewable enegry in excess to pull some carbon out of atmosphere.
  - scotty79 5y ago
    Can we do it while it's still mixed with indium? Is gallium oxide dissolved in EGaIn?
jandrewrogers 5y ago
The throughput of carbon sequestration per unit of time is a direct function of the quantity of gallium and the time it takes to execute a complete reaction cycle. Whether or not you recycle the gallium, the time it takes to complete the process cycle limits the number of iterations you can execute per year, which in turn limits the amount of carbon a ton of gallium can sequester per year. If you need to remove tens of gigatons of carbon per year, you are going to need similar scales of gallium to have enough reactant operating concurrently.

The alloy is completely reusable as per TFA, I'm not sure why gigatons are needed...

scotty79 5y ago

How fo you turn gallium oxide back into gallium? Hiw do you separate it from carbon or from indium?

Iwan-Zotow 5y ago
> How do you turn gallium oxide back into gallium? electricity? Cathode and Anode?
DennisP 5y ago
From wikipedia, "Ga2O3 is an intermediate in the purification of gallium." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium(III)_oxide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium(III)_oxide So we'd turn the gallium oxide back into gallium the same way we did in the first place, when we made the gallium. I'm guessing we can also come up with chemical reactions for the other two. However, you're right that gallium production is quite low. It's a byproduct of zinc production from bauxite, and we get only a few hundred tons per year. Wikipedia doesn't say what the potential might be if we gallium were the main product. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium#Production_and_availability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium#Production_and_availab...
- Suchos 5y ago
  You would still need to spend a lot of energy for the process, which brings us to the beginning. This could maybe be used when we have fully renewable enegry in excess to pull some carbon out of atmosphere.
- scotty79 5y ago
  Can we do it while it's still mixed with indium? Is gallium oxide dissolved in EGaIn?

jandrewrogers 5y ago

The throughput of carbon sequestration per unit of time is a direct function of the quantity of gallium and the time it takes to execute a complete reaction cycle. Whether or not you recycle the gallium, the time it takes to complete the process cycle limits the number of iterations you can execute per year, which in turn limits the amount of carbon a ton of gallium can sequester per year. If you need to remove tens of gigatons of carbon per year, you are going to need similar scales of gallium to have enough reactant operating concurrently.